As it has at BEA, bookseller attendance has been slipping at the nine fall regional trade shows. While changes in venue, hurricanes and gas shortages affected this year's numbers, they may not be the only reasons for flat attendance figures or drops of 9% at the New England Independent Booksellers Association show and 13% at Mountains and Plains. Only Great Lakes (GLIBA) saw an uptick in attendance this year.
At a time when economic pressures are forcing some booksellers to reexamine their relationship to the ABA, the regional associations and their shows should be even more of a lifeline for getting business into the independent channel. And yet booksellers like Scott Meyer, owner of Merritt Bookstore in Millbrook, N.Y., and Red Hook, Brooklyn, skipped BEA, let his ABA membership lapse after 24 years and missed the NEIBA show for the fourth year in a row. It's not that he doesn't value NEIBA, said Meyer, but it conflicts with his fall events schedule.
Some attendees, like Neil Strandberg, manager of operations at Tattered Cover in Denver, question the value of the regional shows in changing times. “Should we abolish our regional?” wondered Strandberg, who is a former MPIBA board member who struggled with the difficulty of long-range planning. “I like the thought exercise of the question, because it forces me to think about what is the regional product. To me it's as plain as the nose on my face that the universe has changed around the regionals. We seem to be lurching from one trade show and holiday catalogue to the next.”
Nor can the regionals afford to have attendance falter; most rely on shows as their second largest source of revenue after holiday catalogues. Some regional shows are no longer in the black. NEIBA has run a deficit for each of the past two years. While Pacific Northwest (PNBA) made money, it was not as much as budgeted. “Right now we have $300,000 in the bank,” said executive director Thom Chambliss. Even if the organization were to lose money on the trade show and the holiday and spring catalogues, “we could go on for another eight years. We might as well use it to bring customers into our stores. Otherwise, what's the money for, if there are no stores left?” Chambliss said.
A number of regionals have overhauled their shows in recent years. PNBA moved from a convention center to a hotel in 2008 and decreased its exhibit space from 35,000 to 15,500 square feet. It also gave publishers the option to pack up their booths at the end of the first day of exhibits. Over the past decade, Northern California (NCIBA) has condensed its show from 50,000 to 30,000 square feet, and next year it will move to a smaller site. But executive director Hut Landon can't imagine regional associations without shows. “These shows have enormous value for social interaction,” he said. “It's good for your psyche.” And, he noted, free admission to the trade show is the top reason booksellers cite for joining NCIBA.
Two years ago New Atlantic (NAIBA) scaled back its show to fit into a smaller venue. “By going to cozier spaces, you're not adrift the way you are at BEA,” said president Joe Drabyak, bookseller at Chester County Book Company in West Chester, Pa. “I think the model is the Winter Institute. In selling a book, time is so precious. You have to provide a hook in 50 words or less. The Winter Institute has been really successful in that, and each has produced a bestseller.”
One thing all the regionals face is the tension between commission reps and small presses that want to emphasize orders at the show and larger houses that want face time with booksellers, but not necessarily in the exhibit area. Regionals can't afford to alienate either group, since commission reps take more booths, while larger houses subsidize educational sessions and meals. But even that calculus is changing.
“We look for orders, but we're now resigned to not getting them,” said sales representative Ted Wedel, co-owner of Chesapeake & Hudson, which covers New England and the Mid-Atlantic states. “We used to write 20 times more orders. One thing we're doing is bringing fewer books, one key title per publisher.” He would like to come up with something new, because he still sees the shows as a good place to meet with customers from the farther reaches of the territory.
This year the Midwest Booksellers (MBA) show did put its focus on ordering. “We tried to make our schedule work so that all our events led up to the exhibit,” said executive director Susan Walker. She asked publishers to provide handouts on books presented in the rep picks panels along with an order form that booksellers could use to walk the floor and buy. MBA board member and Consortium v-p of sales Jim Nichols said the strategy worked: “We took more orders than we have in previous years.”
Regionals are trying to make up for trade show shortfalls by reaching out to new constituencies. MBA invited booksellers to bring teacher and librarian “buddies” to the show. PNBA is planning educational sessions for 2009 aimed at attracting 50 to 100 librarians and wants to encourage more small presses to attend. “Next year,” said Chambliss, “I want to be more aggressive and have an independent publishing group have their show at the same time. Will regional shows survive? Attendance is not going to go up unless something substantial changes.”
That's not to say that regional shows don't matter. As Jim Dana, executive director of GLIBA sees it, “The relationship between publishers and independents is fraught with unknowns. To me, the regionals are the way to keep the conversation going between publishers and booksellers.” Ruth Liebmann, v-p, director of retail field marketing and merchandising, agreed: “What really matters is the conversations we have with our customers. That is what we come for.” But where and how that conversation takes place could change. A rep from a publishing house said, “What I find more helpful to find out what booksellers are thinking is to go to the panels, not stand at our booth.”
Given the economic slump, many of these concerns may be moot. As one midsize publisher said, “If there is a big economic downturn, it will be more difficult for publishers to participate in the holiday catalogues and trade shows.”
