Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) The first question comes from John [Heely] – FTN Midwest Securities.
John [Heely] – FTN Midwest Securities
I have a question on the GES business. If you look at same-show revenue growth, I was hoping to get your expectations and your thoughts on how you might see that trending a bit in the fourth quarter and maybe your thoughts on how we should think about same-show revenue growth based on what we see in the economy today heading into 2009. Any color you could provide would be a great help.
Paul Dykstra
We are forecasting same-show revenue growth in the fourth quarter to probably be around flat. We don’t have as much heavy retail shows and don’t have the flip side of that which is some of the rotating industrial shows that perform very well. As we go into the fourth quarter I think that is how we are looking at it right now. Kevin do you want to make a comment on that?
Kevin Rabbitt
I agree with your comments on the fourth quarter and looking into next year it is really too early to tell. There is a lot of uncertainty out there. We have spent a lot of time with our clients in understanding what they are expecting in their shows moving forward. We certainly wouldn’t expect the same high same-show growth we saw last year but I still see a lot of opportunity from a products and services perspective and believe in the overall strength of the marketing industry. I think there are a lot of factors you have to take into account and we’ll certainly have more sense of that as we move forward and get closer to next year.
John [Heely] – FTN Midwest Securities
Taking a step back and looking at the last economic downturn I thought you guys did a great job in talking about how this was different. Can you maybe talk about how same-show revenue growth performed in the prior slowdown?
Paul Dykstra
I’ll give you the best of my recollection. We had much more exposure to tech back then and there was a lot of dot com, telecom spending in just about all the shows we did an I think we saw fairly good drop offs in that. But the rest of the business held up and bounced back fairly quickly. I think this time it is a little bit different in that we didn’t have the same level of financial crisis the last time around and I think there was still a good rallying cry going on in the country to get people to go back out and spend. Kevin do you have any more color on that?
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