Market fears buyers put off by inn crowd.

• Author: Martin, Edward
• Position: TAR HEEL TATTLER

Quit biting the hand that feeds you, the High Point Market Authority is pleading to hoteliers who routinely triple room rates for the twice-yearly furniture markets. Pretty please. We'll try to scratch your back if you scratch ours.

Officials can only appeal politely on behalf of 100,000 buyers who flock to the city each spring and fall for the markets, which pump an estimated $1.2 billion a year into the state economy. Pressuring hotels to keep a roof on their rates could be construed as coercion, restraint of trade and even price fixing. "We can't legally sit in a room and talk about those factors," says Brian Casey, authority president.

The issue has been around for years but assumed urgency last year when Las Vegas started a market (cover story, June). "Vegas is expensive for exhibitors but inexpensive for retailers," says Jerry Epperson, managing director of Mann, Armistead and Epperson, a Richmond, Va., investment-banking firm. He tracks the market. "High Point is less expensive for exhibitors and more expensive for the retailers."

Vegas' exhibit space rents for about $40 a square foot, compared with High Point's $12. But Vegas has 120,000 hotel rooms, and the...