Not an Invitation to Refuse

Jim Belushi had donned his sunglasses and was belting out classic blues. The audience was waving their arms in the air, jumping on stage, shaking parts of their anatomy that probably hadn’t moved in a decade or so and was basically, to quote McDonalds, ‘loving it’. Tucked away in the hills outside Tucson some 100 plus high-end jewelry exhibitors had gathered for the 4th annual Centurion Show.

Visitors to the show are the creme de la creme of U.S. jewelers. These are the guys whose customers rarely ask the price, only go to jewelry shows to buy, buy, buy and are looking for exclusivity, (which at Centurion could be found in the guise of several fancy color diamond rings, which featured center stones of 10 carats and up).

At this show there’s not much window shopping taking place and if you’re not invited then don’t even think of trying to gatecrash. But, for the people in the in, it’s four days of sales, fun and shaking their booty late into the night.

This show, in the words of one exhibitor, ‘was a-hopping’, especially if compared to a couple of other trade shows that took place earlier in the month. This show is all about the niche, in this case the high-end niche. This is not the place to be if you’re looking for the close-out booths. Exhibitors included Rosy Blue Fine, Aaron Basha, Scott Kay, Faberge, Marco Bicego, Tycoon, Simon G, Roberto Coin. Big names, big brands, and some fantastic big pieces. It was the power of the brand, which at the beginning of 2005 is booming in the upper-end of the market.

In Phoenix, the situation was the absolute opposite, exhibitors were pouncing on the few buyers who attended giving rise to the question as to just how many trade shows can the market soak up? If the results of this month are anything to go buy, trade shows, like the industry as a whole, have to differentiate themselves in order to pull in the buyers.

The large generic shows taking place throughout the year are struggling to attract the crowds they once enjoyed. Many companies are finding themselves turning away from the plethora of U.S. trade shows, instead concentrating their marketing sources on emerging markets elsewhere such as China and India. A reflection of the trend taking place throughout the industry. With so many companies all scrambling for a piece of the cherry pie, some prefer to cut a piece of a different pie.

As for the pie-eaters here in Tucson - well, they’re happy. This past season was very good for the top-end of the market. Consumers with a large amount of discretionary spending are spending, and quite a significant amount of it on jewelry. One company, however, did mention that they had something of a problem. They had started an advertising campaign promoting their fancy pink diamond rings, unfortunately by the time the adverts hit the press they’d sold out of every item. “Ah well”, the owner said, “it’s time to get back to Belushi”.