BP The Budget and the World Cup

I manage various event industry websites for a long list of clients.
Yesterday I received an email saying a tuxedo hire business was folding, I also received a call from a Conference Venues Specialist asking me if we should run a few contests on the websites to increase enquiries as it has been very quiet, my answer to that was ‘don’t bother’.

The numbers that make up the event industry is largely consumed and managed by Middle Britain, mainly the middle class and upper middle class. The event industry constitutes, companies involved in the management and production of private events like weddings, birthdays, annivesary parties and conference and Corporate production specialist mainly involved in the producing of conferences for large private and public companies.

These conferences usually end with a party which involves various London Caterers and Entertainment Companies.

Since the 3rd Quarter of 2008 the event industry as a whole has been limping, everyone from equipment hire companies to wedding bands. Generally if you were a Wedding Band you would still be ok if you were a cheap or midpriced one and off course your band was extremely good.  However if you were relied on corporate events to pay the bills, then chances are some of the band members have signed up for benefits. Generally the lavish and slighltly lavish corporate events utilising live muscians have almost completety stoped using live bands, there has been a drop of almost 90%.

Up to about Easter, it looked like the Labour Goverments actions to help the economy recover were showing some signs of recovery as companies begun to receive enquiries for their services right up till Christmas, this involved Christmas Party Entertainment . The smiles and the enthusiasm begun to return, then easter came, then the elections came, then the BP Disaster came, the World cup and finally the nail on the coffin the Condems  Budget.

Now all of Britain is watching the World Cup to divert their attention from their real worries, trying to forget about the budget and its implications, on whether their jobs or businesses will survive and will the BP disaster wipe out some of the nest eggs and pension plans and further damage the economy and the diving currency (UK Pound) as billions of pounds flow out to America. 

So what does this mean to the limping UK event industry, it means, everything to do with their business is on hold, should everyone be worried and fold their business like the tuxedo business? I don’t think so, I think those being hit by the further  slowdowns, who have weathered the slowdown since 2008 should call their banks, afterall we helped them, there is no reason why they should not help us, reschedule payments, enjoy the world cup and wait for the light at the end of the tunnell.

Once everyone realises their business will go on and they are required for their jobs, their insecurities will go away and they will start planning their private and corporate events again.

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