Although she understands the general feeling of people towards the coup, she decided to postpone the launch ceremony.

"The Thai market still has strong potential. Thais supported the action, so it should be positive," she said. However, the event organiser thought the timing was not right.

In spite of its calm and bloodless nature, Tuesday night's coup has forced many organisers to cancel their business events, with press conferences for 18 out of 23 firms called off yesterday.

Among them were Epson (Thailand) Co Ltd, Nakornthai Strip Mill Plc, The Mall Group Co Ltd, Thai AirAsia Co Ltd, True Corp Plc and Franchise Focus Co Ltd.

Almost all the press briefings at the Stock Exchange of Thailand's office were also cancelled, except for Bank of Ayudhya Plc's shareholders' meeting.

The companies said they had to forfeit their deposits for the venues, as well as the management fees paid for putting on the press conference.

Most of them said that deferring media events did not change their business strategy, because the events were mostly meant to provide details about their business to reporters and journalists.

However, some public-relations (PR) agencies said the delay in holding promotional activities for seminars would disrupt their plans, because they had to reschedule the programme to a later date.

A PR officer said her company was going to present a seminar and had invited all journalists to join.

"When the coup took place, some speakers who were government officials pulled out, and our participants were also concerned about this serious incident," she said.

Somjit Rikhitsathaporn, managing director of Franchise Focus Co Ltd, said missing out on the chance to make their public announcement had thrown off their marketing plan, because the news would fail to be published in some twice-a-week or weekly publication.

Although she did not have to pay for the hotel, it was very difficult for her to book another date for the press conference.

The coup also really threw a wrench into the company's television campaign, because she did not know whether the spots would be aired.

The most important thing is that the incident has caused her customers to lose confidence in running their business.

Somjit said most of them said they were just postponing - not cancelling - their press conferences and seminars. She added that they were waiting for the tense situation to settle down before trying again.