[size=20]Texas State Fair's luxury sales drop[/size]
Thursday - October 2, 2008
By JESSICA MEYERS / The Dallas Morning News
jmeyers@dallasnews.com
The State Fair's Grand Place building houses its usual blend of hot tubs, vibrating foot massagers and handcrafted African goods. It's only missing one thing this year: customers.
Luxury goods vendors say they're experiencing the worst sales year on record,
up to an 80 percent decrease among some sellers almost a week into the fair. They attribute it to an early decline in fair attendance and spreading fears about Wall Street's crashing stocks.
"
Last year you couldn't get across the aisles," said Brad Collins, who sells custom-built Western furniture in the Grand Place building. "Now you can shoot a gun in here and nobody would get hit."
Mr. Collins said he's one of the vendors experiencing an 80 percent decline in sales compared with last year.
TOM FOX/DMNGriffin Pierpont, 12, of Colleyville takes a break with his family at the
Aries Spas Manufacturing display at the State Fair of Texas.
Photography Photo store Carlene Cash, who sells stuffed jalapeno cookers, described things as "bad, bad, bad."
And Medi-Rub Massagers owner Lee Jurewicz said
sales are the worst he's seen in the 12 years he's worked the fair. The St. Petersburg, Fla., vendor said he's sold 32 machines so far, compared with 100 at this time last year.
Mr. Jurewicz hauls his goods to five fairs a year, from Orange County to Kansas City, but said nothing compares to the drought he is experiencing in Texas.
"To stand here and do nothing is terrible," he said, looking at a line of empty chairs bearing foot massagers.
While failing banks and sinking markets have affected visitors, State Fair spokeswoman Sue Gooding attributes the lousy sales to football.
Last Saturday marked the first time in five years a football game did not occur on opening weekend, events that wrangle in the largest crowds for the fair. Prairie View A&M University and Grambling State University play this Saturday in the Cotton Bowl, with the University of Texas and the University of Oklahoma renewing their annual clash the following weekend.
Many customers who are making their annual trek to ogle the whirlpools and paw the handmade jewelry say they're keeping
tighter pocketbooks.
Two years ago, the Allens from Corsicana spent $5,000 on a bar and pool table. This year, Jeanny Allen said, they're buying nothing.
"We're spending a lot less as we watch our money disappear from the stock market and our retirement go down the drain," she said.
The vendors who are making sales have etched out a niche market that makes purchases more justifiable, said seller Tomazane Tonips, who has only seen a "smidgen" of a decrease in sales of her husband's handmade stone oil lamps.
"If it's something they think is really unique, they will continue to spend," said Ms. Tonips, who sells their goods in the Arts and Collectables tent. She admitted lowering prices to accommodate increasingly selective shoppers.
She's banking on customers like John Kearley of Arlington, who declared that he and his wife would spend the same amount as they always do. That prompted his wife, Jean Crawford, to shake her head in disagreement.
"
It's scary times," she said.
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