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Shocking 30+% Drop in Housing Construction Starts; But a Turnaround May Be Lurking

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a machine gets ready to start constructing a housing project

Existing Home Sales Decline as Well

I’ve been saying for a while now that really, really tough economic data was coming. Even though it was obvious to many of us that the economy was crashing – thanks to COVID-19 – it takes time for backward-looking statistics to catch up. Well, now they’re starting to catch up and with overall residential housing construction starts dropping an eye-popping 30.2% in April…they are ugly.

But read on to see why one piece of data seems to suggest that a housing turnaround make be lurking in the near future – or is even already here…

Learn more about this new data on the housing market…

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Mike Park, Key Partner and CTO of James Loudspeaker, Retires

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Mike Park of James Loudspeaker
Mike Park [Click to enlarge]

Mike Park, a key partner and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of James Loudspeaker, retired this month due to health issues, the company has announced. It would be hard to overstate Park’s influence in the growth and success of James Loudspeaker. As a key role player in the company for the last 15 years, Park has made many contributions to the company’s technology direction and product development, driving an era of rapid growth that ultimately led to James’ acquisition by Sonance in 2019.

See more on Park’s retirement from James Loudspeaker…

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Sound United and HTSA Partner to Expand Market Availability of Top Audio Brands

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Sound United logo

Sound United LLC, the parent company to brands such as Denon, Marantz, Polk Audio, Definitive Technology, Classé, and Boston Acoustics, announced on Tuesday that they have joined forces with Home Technology Specialists of America (HTSA), a leading trade consortium of custom integration dealers. This new partnership will expand availability of some of the top specialty audio brands throughout North America, thanks to HTSA’s extensive network of top dealers.

See more on this Sound United and HTSA partnership…

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Rocky Mountain Audio Fest, A Popular High-End Event in October, is Canceled

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Photo of the venue where the now canceled Rocky Mountain Audio Fest RMAF was to take place
The Gaylord Rockies Resort where the now-canceled RMAF 2020 was to take place [Click to enlarge]

On Tuesday, promoters of the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest – a well respected and popular event for the high-end specialty audio segment – announced that they were cancelling the show scheduled for October 2-4, 2020 in Aurora, CO. Like many other industry events this year, the reason was due to the disruption caused by the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.

See more on the RMAF cancellation…

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With Original Event Canceled, IFA Now Says It Will Hold a New Live, In-Person Show in September

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IFA 2020 is an all-new 3-day event in September 2020

Promoter Says It Is Putting ‘Health and Safety First’

Saying they are putting “Health and Safety first,” IFA announces they have received the appropriate government approvals to hold a live, in-person trade show event in Berlin this coming September. The announcement was a dramatic departure from their previous announcement in April cancelling this very event. But will anyone choose to attend?

See more on IFA effectively un-cancelling their show…

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Consumers Look Through COVID-19 Lens to Form an Opinion of Your Brand

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COVID-19 consumer Brand Sentiment survey header

The race is on as marketers conduct myriad surveys to try and understand how the forced self-isolation resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting the consumer psyche now. Also, marketers want to determine if there will be any lingering effects in consumer sentiment – and perhaps more importantly, spending patterns – down the road, when life begins to return to some sort of normal again.

One thing marketers have discovered is that consumers are making judgments about your company and your brand, by looking at you through a COVID-19 lens – which, depending on your actions, could be either positive or negative.

See how your response to COVID-19 can make or break your relationship with consumers…

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SnapAV Launches New Remote Monitoring Platform Integrating the Best of OvrC, BakPak¹ & Ihiji

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SnapAV announced today that it has engineered an all-new version of their popular OvrC remote monitoring and management system (RMM). This new version, launched in the wake of their acquisition of Control4 last year with its competitive Pakedge networking, as well as BakPak and Ihiji remote monitoring solutions, is said to combine the best of all of these systems.

SnapAV says OvrC is their ‘platform of the future.’ See more…

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Epidemic Engulfs Emerald Expositions; Reports Massive Q1 Loss of $570.1M

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CFO Admits Company Looking at Possibility of No More Shows in 2020 – and Fewer in 2021

Emerald Holding logo

Emerald Holding Inc., formerly Emerald Expositions Events, Inc. (NYSE:EEX), has released their fiscal 2020 first quarter results and the organization makes no bones about it – it has been hit, and hit hard, by the COVID-19 pandemic. The company announced that in the first quarter of fiscal 2020 – the period ending March 31, 2020 – sales declined 27.4% to $99.7 million and the company had the biggest net loss in its history, losing $570.1 million.

See more on the dire situation at Emerald…

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AXPONA is Canceled; But Its Promoter & Exhibitors are Still Battling

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Joel Davis of JD Events (JDE) announced a little more than a week ago that AXPONA, the high-end audio exposition scheduled to take place in Schaumburg, IL in August, is now canceled. Citing the health and safety of attendees, Davis’ letter said “we do not feel 100% confident that we can provide a safe environment for all of our customers and press…” But in a separate communication to exhibitors, Davis informed them the that JDE was in dire financial straits and unable to return their deposits – further angering the still unhappy AXPONA exhibitors.

See more on the AXPONA turmoil…

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Sonos Hits Sour Note – Fiscal Q2 Sales Drop 17%, Losses Hit $52.3 Million

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Photo of new Sonos Sub

CEO Says Direct-to-Consumer Sales Were Big, Launching Three New Models

Sonos Inc. announced Wednesday the results of their fiscal second quarter, a quarter that CEO Patrick Spence called “challenging.” The company saw a double-digit sales decline of 17% to $175.1 million from $210.2 million in the same quarter in 2019. Worse, net losses more than doubled to $52.3 million – 129% worse than the net loss of $22.8 million in Q2 last year.

Still, Spence sounded upbeat in a letter to investors and says he is “confident that the actions we are taking today will set us up for long-term success and the continued tremendous opportunity ahead.”

Learn more about the sour Sonos results in Q2…

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