Maine Industrial Show sees attendance plunge

BANGOR – A dismal statewide manufacturing environment that has claimed thousands of jobs and shut down dozens of businesses may have another victim – a major industrial products trade show.

The likely closure of the Maine Industrial Show is reflective of an economy that has business owners scrambling to meet overhead expenses and maintain jobs.

Paper company bankruptcies, business shutdowns and job layoffs have reduced dramatically attendance levels of vendors and viewers at the show, which over the last two decades was a major forum for businesses to buy and sell goods.

Now, citing a lack of business, organizers say the Maine Industrial Show may not return for its next scheduled run in 2005, ending an every-other-year stretch at the Bangor Auditorium that goes back to 1979.

“I can see why that might happen,” said Denise Sheehan, vice president of Industrial Packaging of Bucksport. “Until people who buy the products want to come back, it’s a losing proposition.”

Russ Ryan, show coordinator with Cornerstone Expositions of Belmont, Mass., said Thursday that he never expected such a drastic downturn in the manufacturing industry, not only in Maine but throughout the country.

“The rug was pulled out from underneath us and we don’t know why,” he said. “There isn’t a business out there that isn’t affected.”

The Maine Industrial Show ended this year’s two-day run Thursday, but not before vendors realized it pretty much was going to be a bust. On Wednesday, a couple of vendors packed up and left after they figured out they would be losing money by staying. By Thursday morning, organizers left notes on the remaining vendors’ tables reminding sellers that the show ran until 8 that night and that they were required to stay until then.

In years past attendance for the show exceeded 5,000 and “you couldn’t get down the aisles,” Ryan said, but attendance for this edition may have topped only about 2,000 people by Thursday night. Booth space rentals were down more than 30 percent, and room reservations at nearby hotels were down by more than half, he said.

“A small convention like this isn’t bringing the revenue it used to bring,” Ryan said. “If I went around [to vendors] right now and said, ‘Do you want to renew your booth space [for 2005]?’ they’d probably say, ‘No, we just don’t have enough attendees.'”

Vendors, some of them practicing their putting on an electronic golf game or snacking on bite-size pieces of candy that were set out for guests, remembered the years when the show was hopping. The auditorium’s floor, along with its hallways and parking lots, overflowed with people and products, and sales orders were plentiful.

“It was buzzing,” said Dick McCann, president of McCann Fabrication in New Gloucester. “It was really alive.”

Now, said Bob Golder, sales manager for Unifirst Corp. of Bangor, “you go with the flow.”

“We came up here years ago chasing the pulp and paper industry,” said show coordinator Ryan. “The pulp and paper industry isn’t here anymore.”

With fewer paper machines up and running throughout the state, and numerous traditional manufacturers such as textiles and shoes boarded up, area companies that once counted on those companies’ business now are diversifying their product lines to meets lowered sales goals and pay operational expenses.

“Our business has diversified a lot in the last six or seven years,” said Sheehan, whose Industrial Packaging company faces competition from a national contractor for business from International Paper in Bucksport. “Nobody’s really getting rich in this industry right now. Everyone’s struggling to keep employees.”

Besides Industrial Packaging, N.H. Bragg and Sons of Bangor also is changing its focus after flat sales this year compared to last. After nearly 150 years in business, the industrial products distributor is beginning to emphasize safety equipment and supplies while maintaining its traditional product lines, said John Bragg, company president.

“You just have to offset things,” he said. “If one [line’s] up and one’s down, one makes up for the other.”