Event marketers won’t be hanging up their lead scanners any time soon, as forecasts show recession fears are steadily waning.
President Trump’s trade war against China and other countries spiked the chances of a recession to 60 percent this spring, according to researchers at JP Morgan. The bank has since lowered that to 40 percent, with Oxford Economics pinning it at an even lower 30 percent.
Trump continues to impose new tariffs, with levies on foreign steel and aluminum set to double to 50 percent Wednesday as the president seeks to promote U.S. manufacturing. Multiple states and companies are suing the administration, worried that high prices will inspire people to cut back on spending and send businesses into a tailspin.
Those in charge of marketing budgets tell Vendelux they’re continuing business as usual in the meantime.
“We are staying steady with our schedule for the year,” said Lina Tonk, chief marketing officer for Recurly. “I actually signed off on our events budget and planning for the year already.”
The health of the US economy is on everyone’s mind, Tonk told Vendelux as she took a break from her company’s booth at SubSummit last week. She says the fears don’t always match the reality on the ground.
“On our side, we don’t see any early indicators of anything slowing down. We had a call this morning where we said, ‘If anything, things are supercharged right now,’” she said.
Recurly helps subscription-based services manage recurring billing. Because they sell software, higher prices on physical goods manufactured abroad haven’t affected them directly.
When the going gets tough, subscriptions are a “way to generate revenue in a very creative way,” Tonk added, suggesting that her company’s services may even benefit from a downturn.
Businesses running a more traditional model may feel the pinch more acutely.
Jessica Trent is the VP of sales at Our Serviceworks, a Dallas-based fulfillment company that offers warehousing and shipping.
“We are definitely concerned about the impact that it has on our brands,” she said. “We look at ourselves as their partner, and so anything that impacts them is a concern on our side as well, for sure.”
That said, there are no major red flags as of yet. She plans to continue exhibiting at conferences as planned.
“I think we want to be at these places, and we want our brand to be recognized in the market,” she said. “I don’t know that we would do anything differently.”
Pater Schumacher, VP of demand generation at cybersecurity firm Brinqa, says any adjustment to the events budgets would follow internal sales forecasts, which won’t be out until next year.
“It hasn’t impacted our budget in our planning yet,” he said.
Most companies are in a wait-and-see pattern as the Trump administration sorts out exactly what kind of tariff approach it wants to take. The US and China cut a deal last month that saw the US drop its tariffs against Chinese-made goods to 30 percent, while China dropped its own retaliatory tariffs to 10 percent, but tensions are still high after China accused the US of violating the agreement by setting export control guidelines for AI chips and going after international students at Harvard.
For some, this instability is just as troublesome.
LAMIK Beauty founder Kim Roxie says she’s noticed prices go up for some of her vendors.
“But the uncertainty is really what gets you, right?” she told Vendelux. “All that sort of, you know, dangling.”
Whether tariffs ease or skyrocket, some B2B companies rely on events too much to ever cut back.
Enterpret is an AI-based company that helps businesses understand what their customers want, what issues they’re having, and how they can be solved. Their own customers—other companies—are naturally found wandering about the trade show floor.
The company’s head of growth, Kevin Wong, says he and his team haven’t “felt the impacts” of the tariffs quite yet. But even if they did, he doesn’t think their event strategy would differ. A phone call, he says, doesn’t compare to being on hand at a trade show to meet your client’s needs.
“As customers become more price sensitive, having a good customer experience is the primary reason why a customer might stay with the brand,” he said. “And so it actually becomes a competitive advantage.”
