Tupelo Market has announced date changes. The January 2017 Market will be held January 5-8 and the summer Market will be held June 8-11. The traditional Thursday through Sunday schedule will remain unchanged.

According to Kevin Seddon, Tupelo Market president the change was the result of feedback from both exhibitors and retailers many of which had expressed a preference for the earlier dates. “Tupelo has always been known as an order writing show,” Seddon told Furniture/Today. “If you’re writing an order in early January you can have it shipped and in your store for tax season, which is a key time for many of the retailers attending the Market.”

Seddon explained that the Market conducted interviews and discussions with virtually all its exhibitors as well as many of its retail attendees and heard back that timing at the beginning of the winter show season was viewed more favorably than the Market’s February timing at the end of the show cycle.

Acknowledging that the new timing moves Tupelo closer to other winter events in Atlanta, Dallas and Las Vegas, Seddon indicated that Tupelo’s core retail audience, drawn from the 12 state region surrounding Mississippi did not see a conflict that would deter attendance.

“You always have concerns any time you make a change, but you have to weigh that with the benefits to the companies that exhibit and the buyers that come to Tupelo,” Seddon said. “The smaller operators that drive to the show have indicated they wanted the January timing desperately. As for the larger retailers, we called and had discussions with many of them and they were fine with the change.”

(Source: Casual Living  Author: Bill McLoughlin)