New York, NY – The trade show industry will take a closer look at the housing sector and its gravitational pull on associated exhibitions and the overall economy on September 12 at the annual Center for Exhibition Industry Research (CEIR) Predict Conference in New York.
Roughly130 trade show industry executives, venues, and M&A firms are expected in the audience at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City for a look at the current state of the industry and the expectations for the coming years as the global economy improves and evolves at a sometimes agonizingly slow pace.
This wild card in the economic recovery continues to be the housing industry, which was derailed by the recession and dragged some of the most venerable trade shows in the construction sector down with it. One of the key panels of Predict will look specifically at the performance of the Raw Materials (RM) and the Building, Construction, Home & Repair (HM) sectors. The discussion will focus on factors such as credit, interest rates and projections for new housing starts, and how that could affect construction shows.
“The outlook for home building and remodeling has improved considerably over the past year,” said Jerry Howard, CEO of the National Association of Home Builders and a member of the Predict panel. “Such improvement in production is triggering growth in our annual exhibition sales.”
But while the year began on a bullish note, a curve ball was thrown in this Summer when the CEIR Index for the Second Quarter of 2013 found that despite a respectable three months for real estate, trade shows in the HM sector declined (1.8)%.
Howard will be among the show organizers who will discuss whether or not the Q2 was a hiccup or sign of a relapse of malaise in this critical sector. He will be joined by moderator Rick McConnell, president of Hanley Wood; Megan Tanel, vice president of exhibitions, Association of Equipment Manufacturers; and Kimberly Lewis, senior vice president of the U.S. Green Building Council.
All 14 industry sectors will be discussed at Predict.
Reach CEIR Executive Director Cathy Breden at (972) 687-9201 or cbreden@ceir.org
