I attended the Mortgage Expo 2008 show yesterday. This year my interest lay not just in visiting the stands as normal, but in seeing how the show had been affected by the current market conditions. Would attendance be down? Would the number of exhibitors have reduced? Will the atmosphere be one of uncertainty and fear? The answer of course was yes, yes and yes. As I arrived at 10 am I was jumped on by what seemed like every exhibitor that had braved the market conditions to attend. As one of the few attendees there freebees were thrust at me while scanners were clicked all around me trying to capture my details for some future marketing campaigns. At that point there were so few attendees if it had a pulse the exhibitors jumped on it.
As for the exhibitors the numbers were also reduced substantially and the big prominent stands of the past were distinctly lacking. Gone were all the sub prime lenders that had entertained us in the past, even the traditional lenders were reduced in numbers. Gone were the alcohol based stands, the computer games, walk in buses and chocolate fountains replaced by bowls of chocolates, bananas and free packets of mints.
The exhibitors were now made up of Software companies, Surveyors, Networks, Publications and Insurance companies – indeed of the 79 exhibitors listed in the exhibition guide, only 6 of these were lenders. These remaining exhibitors have benefited and had clearly got increased stand size for reduced fees. Some companies used to tiny stands said their stands had been increased in size 3 times by the organisers at no additional cost. However given the drop in footfall in the exhibition itself this will have been of small consolation.
Let’s hope the market upturn happens quickly and next year things are back to normal.
