I just got back from the San Francisco Gift Show.  Yikes!

It was a Ghost Town in there.  Just a couple of years ago the show covered both Halls of Moscone Center, the mezzanine area AND the Concourse building down the street.  This year?  One Hall for everything (and if you’ve ever been to one of these things you’ll know that “everything” includes toys, food and…ahem…”novelty.”)

Ee Gahwd (sigh).

When I was searching the internet to find images that would describe the situation better than words, I googled phrases like “missing persons,” “customers wanted,” “desolation” and “tumbleweeds and vultures.”  But that seemed too apocalyptic even for me so I’ve decided to flip my mind around and look at it differently.

I’m the type of person that usually sees the glass as half empty and I’ve often been told that that’s too pessimistic an attitude in life.  But the way I see it, if you’re always seeing the glass as half full, you may be WAY too late to do anything before the glass empties.

So now that I’ve seen how dire the outlook is for stores that were relying on the San Francisco Gift Show for their Spring inventory, I’m REALLY glad I sucked it up and went to New York (even though I feared before I went that in this economy going to the New York Gift Show might be money/frequent-flier miles I shouldn’t spend.)  At least I’ll have Spring inventory if spring ever gets into the mindset of customers.  And if customers ever do come back, I even have a list of back-up product to speedily order.

So I guess MY glass IS half full.  But I’m holding my breath.