What High Point could do right now
Ray Allegrezza, Editor in Chief -- Furniture Today, October 10, 2005
While there may be no free lunch, there was a free breakfast during premarket, thanks to the City of High Point. In hopes of better communication with market attendees, the city hosted the eat-and-greet to give exhibitors and buyers an update on activities designed to make the High Point market better.
High Point Mayor Becky Smothers stood before a group of more than 50 of us, mostly exhibitors, and told us that our High Point market experience is not only getting better but will change even more.
Some of that hopefully will come with the help of $1 million from the city, which Smothers said has been proposed for the fiscal year starting next July 1.
The good news is that the mayor was honest enough to acknowledge some key issues the High Point market has been wrestling with for years, such as price gouging, the need for one-pass market registration and desire for more buyer parking.
She also touched on the need to make attendees feel more valued and welcome while in town.
These matters, she insisted, are on the radar and are being looked into. For example, she said that some 60 of the 110 hotels that serve marketgoers have agreed to look into their rates during market.
That announcement prompted an exhibitor sitting close to me to quip, "That's like my kids telling me they are going to look into ways to spend more time doing homework."
That comment underscores the bad-news portion of the meeting. "We heard about what has been done so far and we heard about what they plan to do in the future, but what actions are being taken right now?" one retailer wondered.
After the meeting, City Furniture's Keith Koenig gave Mayor Smothers something to chew on.
"If you want to make a difference, get us more private homes to stay in, find convenient places for us to park our cars as opposed to sitting on a shuttle, and provide free dinner for buyers at market," he said.
High Point, one of your key customers has told you what would help.
Is anybody out there listening?
