The depressive effect of a Cabinet which must have the lowest collective IQ of any since the 19th century .
High Street sales fell by 1.4 % in March , while non-store retail – like Amazon – fell by nearly 8 %. Train occupancy is still 70 % of 2019 , tube occupancy 75 %. The City of London is ghost town for much of the week , and real office occupancy is no more than 50 %. Government debt is at the highest level it has ever been in peacetime . The significance of the debt is that the government has to spend more in interest to service it , so must spend less than it would wish on the likes of the NHS and De-fence to stop debt going higher .
Think inflation on house mortgages and petrol prices We haven ’ t even talked about what will happen when interest rates rise to keep pace with inflation and the monthly cost of refinancing a five-year mortgage doubles .
Oxford Street retailers say that they are still seeing 25 % fewer shoppers than pre-Covid – and if you fancy getting away , try the queues on the M20 , or the cancelled flights at Heathrow , or even P & O Ferries . And if you want to drive , enjoy petrol prices which are at their highest level ever . Latest figures this week show that the average pension will
6.00 %
4.00 %
2.00 %
0.00 %
-2.00 %
-4.00 %
-6.00 %
-8.00 %
-10.00 %
-12.00 %
-14.00 %
1999
2000
2001
2002
“ There will be special factors – I am convinced that Crossrail finally opening will have a big effect on ExCeL attendances ”
lose £ 7,000 in value this year because of a lack of inflation proofing .
Covid hasn ’ t gone away – 5 % of us have it on any particular day . The economic effects of Ukraine are unknowable – the effect on food prices worldwide is already being seen and we haven ’ t even mentioned inflation predicted to rise to 9 % or more . For many of these anecdotes , read Martin Vander Weyer in The Spectator – a marvellous economics column .
It ’ s being so cheerful keeps me going .
So how might all of this affect exhibitions ? None of these items induces a recession on its own – but the combination and many more points in the direction of an economic downturn which is likely to last
Annual change in visitors to UK trade shows Like for like only ( turquoise = recessions )
2007
2004 2006
2005 2003
2008 2009
2010
2011 2012 2013 2016 2017 2018
2014 2015
2019 at least two years – most recessions do .
So how might we expect it to affect our own industry ? Two obvious points to begin with :
One , the UK represents less than half the turnover of all our larger companies – not that this is much of a consolation to everyone working in the UK .
Two , because we have had no comparable figures since 2019 , making like-for-like interpretations is as complex as it has ever been . Having said that , there is no reason why 2019 should not be a baseline for our thinking .
In past recessions visitors fell 20 % and square metres 15 % So what happened in previous recessions – as far as we can tell ? There have been three clear recessions in the three decades for which we have some information – 1990-92 , 2000-02 , and 2009-2011 .
The chart ( pictured ) shows what happened to visitor numbers at trade shows in the last two . This is like-forlike year-on-year , so includes only shows for which data is available in consecutive years , and does not include consumer events . This allows numbers to be accurately compared .
In 2001 and 2002 the fall was dramatic , with 12 % fewer visitors in 2001 and 8 % fewer in 2002 . One caveat is that the previous year , 2000 , showed the highest ever number of visitors to exhibitions , so the fall in 2001 was probably from an artificial high . In both 2008 and 2009 , visitor numbers fell by 8 % and did not start rising again until 2012 . We don ’ t have comparable numbers for 1990-92 , but overall numbers for visitors to all exhibitions fell by 14 % between 1989 and 1993 .
Square metres recover faster than visitor numbers Square metres are a reasonable proxy for revenues and here we have numbers for all three recessions .
In the recession of 1990-93 , the number of square metres sold at UK exhibitions fell by 13.4 %. They then
44 — June