The recession has hit our industry hard. Our professional customers have seen their end users restraining their events budgets while our occasional hire and buy customers have reduced disposable income to spend on what most regard as a ‘luxury purchase’. To make matters worse the devaluation of sterling against the Euro and the dollar have pushed prices up across the board !
Over the coming months I will be reviewing on this blog thread how Langley Sound & Light will address these challenges with a view to identifying how we can help our customers through these difficult times.
A key question is whether the recession is over or ongoing ? Should we be planning to ride the recovery wave or battening down the hatches on a continuing downturn ?
Current economic indicators suggest that we are about to re-enter a growth phase, however this growth is likely to be weak with the threat of increased unemployment inhibiting spending.
There are probably two schools of thought at this stage among event providers : a continuing cautious approach to investments in sound and light equipment purchase and event hosting, with a move towards hire aimed at avoiding short term capital purchases, and those who see the current situation as a wonderful opportunity to substantially increase their brand visibility and business through proactive marketing and the upgrading of their propositions aimed at providing a truly memorable customer experience. Both have risks, but on a personal level I empathize completely with the latter, I believe that the market opportunity is much greater than even the pre recession levels and that we need to drive the market in order to realize this potential. There is a little we can do about the equipment pricing, but there is a lot we can do about the value add that we can bring to enable that highly satisfied customer experience. LSL will be investigating how we can better collaborate with our suppliers and our customers to achieve this.
I’ll be sharing my thoughts and looking for feedback – your experience and ideas will be both welcome and highly valued
