Tupelo Under Fire (Again)
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Larry Thomas |
Tupelo Furniture Market president Bill Cleveland braved enemy fire on several occasions during the Vietnam War, and recent moves by the High Point and Las Vegas markets may make him feel like he’s in the same position more than three decades later.
For months, he and his brother, V.M., the Tupelo market’s chairman, have been developing a plan to deal with the fact that the inaugural Las Vegas market will take place only three weeks before Tupelo’s August show. But more recently, it has become clear that’s not the only threat to the market’s health.
Earlier this year, Las Vegas market organizers announced that their second market would begin January 30 – only about two weeks before Tupelo’s spring market.
And to make matters worse, word leaked out last week that some exhibitors are lobbying to move High Point’s pre-market back one month. That would put it on a February-August cycle –virtually the same as Tupelo’s market dates.
Although pre-market attendance is minimal from a purely numerical standpoint, the buying power that comes to High Point during that time is enormous.
Cleveland and his staff have done an outstanding job attracting Top 100 retailers to Tupelo, but I have to believe most would opt to travel to High Point for pre-market if the dates overlap. And of course, a fair number of Tupelo exhibitors also open their High Point showrooms during pre-market.
Come to think of it, this unofficial, lightly attended event known as pre-market may pose a bigger threat to Tupelo than the heavily promoted and much-anticipated Las Vegas market could ever muster.
