By Steven Feldman
(Part one)
CHICAGO—Amidst rumblings of a commercial market slowdown, coupled with a major storm that forced the cancellation of about 400 flights into O’Hare Airport one day in advance of NeoCon 2008, the show met or exceeded the expectations of most of the 60-plus flooring exhibitors.

“The booth has been buzzing since the minute we opened,” said Joyce LaValle, senior vice president of marketing, InterfaceFLOR. “I think traffic is the same as last year if not up. In fact, we scanned more people in the showroom [on day one of the show] than we ever have.” Unlike others, LaValle was not expecting traffic to be off. “We sent out invitations to our cocktail party and within two days got 950 responses. That told us we were going to have a great show.”

If a slowdown in the market is forthcoming, it’s news to LaValle. “No one is looking for a job, everybody is hiring, and the designers are terribly busy. I don’t get a sense of worry in the least.”

It was much the same at the Mannington Commercial space, where Jack Ganley, president, witnessed strong traffic right from the beginning. “I never had any indication that traffic would be off,” he said. “Our business is still strong, so we came in expecting a good turnout.”

And even if attendance was off, it was of no significance to the manufacturers. Tim Baucom, vice president, commercial, Shaw Contract Group, noted the company was full with appointments, but instead of meeting with six people it may have been meeting with four. “We thought attendance would be down 10% to 15%, and that’s what it will probably be. We are seeing the same firms as we always do but finding more senior designers.” Baucom added that NeoCon was excellent not just for Shaw Contract Group, but also for its Patcraft and Designweave divisons, which for the first time were combined into one showroom. “Traffic was two times what we normally would have had for the individual showrooms.”

James Leslie, president of Beaulieu Commercial, agreed that attendance was down judging by the fact “there was some air to breathe in the corridors, unlike last year.” Nonetheless, traffic inside the booth was not only steady, but with quality people, he said. “We closed some nice deals, which is unusual. We actually sold some carpet this year.”

The quality of attendee was also in evidence at the Armstrong space, where Randy Gablehouse, general sales manager for commercial, North America, referred to the show as “fantastic, especially considering all the flight cancellations. We’ve been encouraged by the dialog. The designers want to learn, they want the facts behind the products. They want to understand why we say something is green. That is encouraging.”

Mark Falanga, senior vice president, Merchandise Mart Properties (MMPI), proprietors of the show, did not have attendance figures at press time, but he told FCNews that if there was any drop-off, it was minimal. For starters, pre-registration was within 1% of last year, when attendance eclipsed 50,000. “That’s a pretty good benchmark.”

He also believes the economic tightening that has impacted the residential sector has not yet been felt in commercial. “People are feeling that the market is holding up. While there are clearly economic issues that everyone is aware of, it has not yet impacted our industry in any significant way. I’m finding this industry has a lot of optimism to it, and those companies that invested in the last recession have really benefited.”

MMPI was even more aggressive this year in its marketing. Falanga said it typically sends out 200,000 brochures to attract attendees. But this year it sent out a much smaller number, primarily to people who have attended the show in the past. That was supplemented by a scaled-down version that was sent to 300,000 members of the A&D community that had never attended NeoCon. “So we almost doubled our reach,” he said. “We want to continue to cultivate a new generation to come to the show.”

The effort to bring on a new generation of designers was also seen on the final day of the market, when about 2,000 students attended. “We expose them to the show at a time when they are eager to learn about all the manufacturers and products.”

Falanga pointed to other positive signs:

• 352 Best of NeoCon submissions, on par with the most entries ever received.

• 125 well-received seminars and three major keynote sessions.

• More showroom construction than any year in the past.

• Exhibit space at capacity, with about 10% of the contract exhibitors new to the show.

(Editor’s note: See an upcoming issue for commercial market trends and what manufacturers were innovating in response to those trends.)