Furniture market: Business is anything but usual
Hundreds of Martinsville and Henry County residents are at their home-away-from-home this week, representing the area’s furniture companies at the High Point International Home Furnishings Market.
The furniture market sprawls a mile or two in every direction, but the heart of it is the 12-floor main building, called the International Home Furnishings Center, which has six wings. Thirty-three other buildings are identified in the market directory, and more locales on the outer edges of the district are used by exhibitors as well.
The main entrance, which has outside a tremendous metal canopy covering four paved lanes used by buses and hotel vans, introduces the visitor to the fast pace and excitement with pop music pounding overhead and people rushing about. Registration is just inside; people were lined five or six deep along seven or eight counters on Monday, opening day.
It’s a serious matter to get into the furniture market. Guards at every door check for passes that list the name and company of the buyer, media representative or “special invitation” guest.
The atmosphere was charged on opening day as furniture industry people from all over the nation and other countries bustled about. Most were dressed in suits or stylish outfits, with well more than half of the women teetering about in high heels.
The pride in locally produced furniture was obvious. Mark Siciliano, director of marketing for Howard Miller, the parent company of Ridgeway Furniture, bragged on the quality pieces produced in Ridgeway, saying that its factory has blazed trails in the wine cabinet category and has kept Howard Miller ahead of the game in curios and display cabinets, as well.
Stanley Furniture Vice President and Product Manager Kelly Cain said, “because we still manufacture 70 percent (of Stanley furniture), we feel like we have the best quality.”
Even those companies that market mainly imports, which has become the norm, are aiming to keep the locally owned companies strong and well-represented in the minds of buyers.
A sign with an ironic message was up in the small showroom of a company from another state. In these buildings full of so much American-looking furniture imported from China, the sign proclaimed “Chinese-look furniture made in America.”
Showrooms run the gamut from shared spaces or small rooms or, as is the case with Hooker, Stanley and Bassett, entire floors of the wings of the main center. Howard Miller, which has curios and wine cabinets made in Ridgeway, has a suite in a building about half a mile away from the center. Shenandoah Furniture, a Henry County company that makes retro-look upholstered furniture, is a bit farther out on the third floor of a brick-and-tall-windows old warehouse.
A carnival-like atmosphere prevails in many of the areas of the buildings. It’s easy to get lost and end up in somewhere like the sprawling Magnussen Home lobby, which is on the 10th floor of the main wing of the main building. There was a band playing jazz music, a magician doing tricks, a juggler performing, an artist painting and many other features as part of a “Mardi Gras” theme.
Cafes and cafeterias in the larger showrooms serve purposes ranging from being hidden away to feed a company’s employees and associates, who might not leave the building for 12 hours each day, to more publicly wining and dining customers with plenty of glitz.
Even the restrooms range from plain to fancy, with specialized towels, soaps and hand lotions, and baskets of amenities that include mouthwash, floss, hairspray, powder and other items.
Plenty of work stations, though, remind everyone that this is a place for work, not play. There is a post office, package-delivery services, cell phone rentals, Internet ports and other business amenities.
The furniture market will close Friday.
