March 21st is the official start to Spring and in a couple of weeks hordes of college kids will be descending upon Panama City FL where I am spending a couple of days with family before the Mary Jane toking crowd swamps the place.

With Spring around the corner and shortly afterwards the end of the first quarter for 2009, now is an excellent time to take stock of progress so far with 2009.

So far, the new stand we ordered has been in action for 4 events – we found the open plan design has worked well in bringing prospects onto the stand but we are looking for an addition to provide some extra seating tucked away off one of the back corners.  This underlines the fact that no matter how much planning and preparation you put into designing your trade show display and arranging things for actual events, it is only when you have the experience of using the kit in practice that you get to explore the advantages and discover the shortcomings.

Fortunately, we chose a design and a supplier we know is able to provide modular additions to the main stand as we need them so this does not pose a huge issue for us but whenever you are looking at investing in a new stand or buying one pre-owned, you must take this into account when making a buying decision.

One of the reasons for my break from the hectic schedule of the first few months of the New Year is because the initial quarter sets the tone for the rest of the year and especially the summer season which is we get set up for the Christmas/Winter season when we make the bulk of our turnover and profits.

For the doomsayers with the economy in a nosedive, our numbers are up on like-for-like sales from the same shows we have already attended this year compared to last – more than this, like-for-like for the months of January and February are also positive and March looks like it will be going the same way – in other words we are set for Q109 being ahead of Q108!