High Point Shifts Dates, Makes Board Changes

June 11, 2008  by in UnCategorized   

By Home Furnishings Business in Markets on June 2008 On a busy day for the High Point Market Authority, the group’s board set a new schedule for events starting in the spring of 2009, gained a new chairman and a new board member and discussed a possible reduction in funding.

The biggest change was a unanimous move to adopt a new six-day schedule with a Saturday start date to address complaints from designers and higher-end buyers that some showrooms have been closing before the end of the Market’s current seven-day schedule, which runs Monday to Sunday.

Newly elected Chairman Kevin O’Connor said the October Market will maintain its current schedule this fall (Oct. 20 to 26), but in 2009, the April 25 to 30 event and future Markets will run Saturday to Thursday. He said the new schedule, which reduces the length of Market by one day, will be more vibrant and ensure that designers will find fully-staffed showrooms when attending on a weekend, which is when many of them prefer to shop.

O’Connor, president and CEO of Samson Marketing, was elected Market Authority Chairman, taking over from Vanguard Furniture CEO John Bray. Other changes included Bruce Miller joining the board as representative of the International Home Furnishings Center, High Point’s biggest showroom building at 3 million square feet. Miller retired as CEO of the IHFC in 2006, but resumed his role on an interim basis in May after Tom Lindh resigned from the top job.

Market Authority President and CEO Brian Casey said he has actively meeting with members of the North Carolina Legislature to lobby against a possible reduction in state funding for the Market. He said a spending bill recently approved by the state House could reduce funding by $400,000 from last year’s level, and he is meeting with members of the state Senate to request that current funding levels be preserved. He said funding could be finalized in July.