Quote:
Originally Posted by marketsmart
the economy is going to play a bigger role in sales in 09 than the tubes will..
i predict that 30-40% of the people in the industry will be gone by the end of the summer next year..  |
I can't predict the future. But I can tell you what I know from my looonnngggg experience in the entertainment business. And yes, I definitely consider the internet to now be a big form of entertainment and internet porn to be one of the biggest.
So I will tell you what I experienced in another "recession proof" business back in the late 1970's.
1978, 1979, 1980, and part of 1981 were pretty bad years for a lot of people in the U.S. The economy stunk, gas prices were higher than they are now if you equate 1978 dollars with 2008 dollars. Businesses were shutting down (for instance TG&Y was a big "walmart" type dept. store before walmart's were around....they closed up shop)
So anyway, unemployment was higher than it is now, gas was high (and there was gas rationing and shortages), percentage rates were through the roof (I had a bank CD that my grandparents got me that was earning 12%...that was pretty sweet)
And the news was full of the news of all this economic hardship.
Meanwhile I was on the road with my first rock band.
Business was NEVER better. Clubs were packed across the country 7 days a week and we were making top dollar as a cover band playing bars.
The old timers that ran the bars all told me that for the bar business, the worse things got for the rest of the economy the better it was for the bar business.
Now I'm not going to predict that it's gonna be the same for us. But I do believe that after the initial "freak out" period of a couple of months...we are going to see business pick up nicely.
Again, that's just my thoughts based on my experience that people crave an "escape" from their worries. Whether it be in nightclubs 30 years ago, or the internet today. They will find a way to "treat" themselves to something that makes life worth living.
When I lived in S.C. I had a lot of work done on my old home. And it was literally an "old" home. So I basically had it rebuilt over a couple of years. And the guys working on it were the usual cast of characters that do construction work in South Carolina. They didn't have much money, none of them owned a home, and a lot of them lived in rented trailers in a trailer park.
But no matter how bad things were for them...they would still show up at the local clubs I played at in my band on the weekend and they always seemed to find enough money for a bag of pot and plenty of beer.
I think it's human nature, and I think I'm gonna keep working hard and watch how this thing plays out and hope I'm right with my feeling that it's gonna work the same way for me now as it did in 1978.
