Registrations down 1% at High Point Market
Organizers say 83,973 badges were issued
By Furniture Today Staff -- Furniture Today, October 11, 2007
HIGH POINT — The High Point Market Authority said nearly 84,000 people were issued badges for last week’s furniture market, a decrease of about 1% from the fall market in 2006.
The group said total registrations of 83,973 included 47,441 buyers and 29,115 exhibitors and sales representatives.
The October 2006 market had total registrations of 84,976, including 44,519 buyers.
Market Authority President Brian Casey said he was especially pleased with the number of buyers registering for the first time. Registration figures showed that 4,625 buyers were first-time visitors, and another 3,030 had not registered in at least two years. He said those numbers represented increases from a year ago.
Casey said the uptick in first-time and returning visitors shows that the Market Authority’s outreach and re-branding efforts are working, and that many decided to return to High Point because of the changes and improvements the group has implemented.
The registration total also includes 5,660 industry passes for suppliers, 487 for market workers such as caterers and photographers, and 1,271 day passes for students, guests and market volunteers.
The total doesn’t include approximately 450 press badges issued through the American Home Furnishings Alliance, which operates the market’s press room.
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What was the attendance from the West Coast, CA, AZ,NV could you break it down by state. Do you have the capability to show only those that attended, not all that registered. Perhaps show attendance by region, that would be interesting to have those comparisons for the next couple of years...
- 2007-14-10 05:22:39 EDT -
Yeah, so how many buyers actually showed up? When you could get on the elevators, with no one on them, I would say that the number of buyers attending was at an all time low.... so what was that number?
- 2007-12-10 11:20:21 EDT -
How many issued passes were used? Written orders and exhibitors were both way down. Move HP dates back to later Oct/April.
- 2007-12-10 05:55:07 EDT -
How was the traffic at High Point? Was anybody buying? Has the price gouging come to an end? I just do not see this being a viable market. Unless you live in the SE.
- 2007-12-10 04:01:56 EDT -
This is a meaningless statistic. The real question is how many people attended the market.
We received 8 badges for market, however only 2 buyers actually went to market. A big part of the problem is the idiotic buyer registration web site, which does not permit you to select which buyers from your company will be attending. Any buyer who is listed automatically gets a badge.
Then to make it even more difficult, you are limited to listing 8 buyers for your company. We occaisionally bring some of our sales people with us (not this time). The registration system is completely user unfriendly for someone like us.
- 2007-12-10 03:55:40 EDT
