LEBANON — The home show has packed up its belongings and left the building.
A sure sign of approaching spring for decades has been the HomeLife Expo, the annual three-day event where home improvement contractors, building supply companies, gardening equipment dealers and the like filled Dartmouth’s Leverone Field House in Hanover to show off their wares and services.
Now, after 40 consecutive years, the HomeLife Expo — known simply as “the home show” — has been “retired,” said Rob Taylor, executive director of the Lebanon Area Chamber of Commerce, which organized the annual event.
The decision to end the home show is perhaps the starkest example yet of how the era of digital technology has upended small businesses in the Upper Valley. After remaining relatively immune from the changes wrought by the internet years longer than other parts of the country, the past couple of years have seen dozens of Upper Valley businesses succumb as people have shifted their shopping habits online.
“The show had run it course. Years ago if you wanted to remodel your home, you had to attend the home show to get ideas,” Taylor said. “The internet changed that dramatically.”
For years the home show was the place where people who were interested in home improvement or redecorating projects would go to get ideas, check out the work of cabinet installers, talk with painting contractors or inspect the latest in lawnmowers or garden tractors.
But Taylor said much of the research by homeowners and consumers is now done online, lessening the need for a trade show.
Taylor also cited the rising price tag of staging the event — last year’s home show cost $30,000 to organize and produce — and of leasing the college’s field house as factors behind the chamber’s decision.
Taylor said the expo had still been profitable for the chamber, but was in “steady decline” because the number of exhibitors had shrunk from “hundreds” to “dozens” and attendance had fallen from “thousands” to “hundreds” at the event’s peak.
Until two years ago, the home show was jointly organized by the Lebanon and Hanover business chambers until Hanover discontinued its participation. The Lebanon chamber tried to introduce new elements, such as a “Marketplace” section for crafts businesses and artisan food purveyors, but saw only limited success.
Instead, an effort to serve members’ needs, Taylor said the chamber is introducing an educational series called the Upper Valley Institute that will offer quarterly presentations and programs that aim to “more directly benefit” employers and businesses in the Upper Valley.
The first UVI program was held last month at the River Valley Community College off-campus space on the mall in Lebanon. The morning event, which included breakfast, was titled “Upper Valley Orientation” and was designed to familiarize new employees with everything from the history of the region to the real estate market, recreational activities and even where to get a good cup of coffee.
Taylor said the idea for the institute came out of canvassing employers such as Hypertherm and Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center about what they see as a pressing need, and one of them was to help new hires “who are coming from Iowa or Kansas get the lay of the land.”
The first institute program featured a panel comprising Steve Taylor, former agriculture commissioner for the state of New Hampshire (and a former Valley News editor), discussing the history and culture of the Upper Valley; Paul Coates, director of the Lebanon Recreation and Parks Department; Joanne Wise of the Upper Valley Arts Alliance; and Rob Schultz, manager of the Leadership Upper Valley program and director of development at Vital Communities.
“We had about 30 people,” Taylor said. “That’s a good size for the first one.”
He said a second institute offering in the spring will be focused on “wellness in the workplace,” that will look at how to combat health-inhibiting habits at work, such as hours at a desk behind a computer screen.
And Taylor said the chamber is drawing up a list of other future topics to tackle at the institute, such as “the paperless office.”
John Lippman can be reached at jlippman@vnews.com.
