NAMM Show delivered for global music & sound industry

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"When the business is music, it’s a fine line between good times and work." That remark by a NAMM official is an accurate summation of the experience of attending the world’s premier gathering for the music instrument and product industry, January 24-27 in Anaheim, California.
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Produced by the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM), the NAMM Show delivered four jam-packed days filled with new product debuts, networking, and educational opportunities set to a soundtrack of live music and conversation among friends old and new.
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*  Mayor STEVIE WONDER
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For the first time, a Mayor led the NAMM Show. NAMM president and CEO Joe Lamond proclaimed world-renowned musician and humanitarian STEVIE WONDER as "Mayor of the NAMM Show" with a lifetime, all-access badge to NAMM. Wonder has been a stalwart attendee for years, always drawing a crowd when he takes to a keyboard in an exhibitor booth.
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For Stevie "His Honor the Mayor" Wonder, it occasioned some heartfelt expression: "My goal is, before it's my time, I hope to be able to make music accessible to everybody, children and adults.” Wonder continued, "It's a whole new world of music and instrument discovery at the show every year.”
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As in past years, before it was his "town," Stevie Wonder walked through the NAMM show trying out new products and meeting with friends, one of hundreds of major artists who could be observed doing that.
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*  Live Music on a Big, New Stage
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This year brought the debut of the Anaheim Convention Center’s new outdoor venue, "The Anaheim Grand Plaza," with 100,000 square feet for NAMM's outdoor stage hosting a steady procession of live performances. (For other events, it becomes "outdoor meeting and event space" of whatever kind.)
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NAMM Show-goers -- and the general public -- enjoyed a series of live performances all day, every day throughout the four-day show in the plaza and surrounding hotels. The outdoor stage hosted concert sets by THE LIVING LEGENDS JAM with band members from FLEETWOOD MAC, the EAGLES, BLACK SABBATH, and more; horn-bristling TOWER OF POWER; CTA, aka CALIFORNIA TRANSIT AUTHORITY, with original members of CHICAGO (which, if you recall, started as Chicago Transit Authority).
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While the team from the Acoustic Americana Music Guide was catching the best acoustic concerts indoors, the Grand Plaza gave the energetic nighttime crowds plenty of authentic rock and roll under night skies.
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Enjoying the outdoor venue after trade show hours, Jerry Loos, owner of Jerry Loos Guitar Training in  Westerville, Ohio, said, "There’s great talent with TOWER OF POWER and a community feeling [on the Grand Plaza]. It’s great to wind down out here after the day, while enjoying some music with good friends and business partners."
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The outdoor stage was also active during daytime hours, though significantly less crowded then, as were publicly-accessible stages in hotel bars and lobbies.
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*  Intelligent Relocation Allowed Expansion
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The new outdoor stage accommodated far larger crowds than ever fit in the lobby, where the main stage had always been. Relocating it allowed the "badges-only" area to expand, for the first time reaching to the convention center’s exterior walls. It effectively increased the show’s footprint.
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With that came the intelligent relocation of registration areas to the hotels. Inside the Convention Center, badged attendees quickly adapted to the larger show perimeter and enjoyed the fluidity of movement from galleries to lobbies, where escalators connect floors.
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It allowed NAMM to create an easier-to-navigate show with fewer ID checks, greatly alleviating the time-consuming bottlenecks of past years.
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Easier access was important. It isn't easy trying to see it all. Every aspect of the music instrument and products industry, including retailers, corporate buyers, artists, and sound and lighting professionals purveyed or surveyed nearly 5000 unique brands in the vast expanses of the Convention Center complex and the meeting and convention facilities of the surrounding hotels.
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Yamaha most notably chose a hotel and the extra space there to present their expanded exhibition and celebrate their 125th anniversary. They also hosted a concert by ELTON JOHN. With that star of an earlier era, many remarked on the changes represented by the company in a medium where everything is in motion and everyone is trying to get a handle on where it will go next.
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Joe Lamond, president and CEO of NAMM, said, “Our industry, like many others, is in the midst of rapid change. And I believe NAMM members who came to Anaheim to see the latest product innovations, attend NAMM University sessions, and network with friends and peers will be uniquely positioned to take advantage of the business opportunities in the year ahead.”
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With live performances literally everywhere -- in booths, on stages, and in hotels -- what was happening behind the scenes had a different driving motivation.
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*  Changed Emphasis for NAMM
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Based on member feedback from recent years, NAMM made a concerted effort this time around to increase buyer (blue) badges and decrease guest (yellow) badges.
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The goal? To create the most business-friendly event in years.
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The number of Buyer badges increased 4 percent over 2012, while non-industry guests decreased 16 percent. The latter can be explained by limiting guest badges. The former -- an actual increase in buyers -- was attributed to the desire of a variety of wholesale and bulk consumers to be there.
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They came from retail music stores and corporate buyers -- including some you may not expect, like houses of worship and mega-churches, live event venues of all kinds, touring professionals, casinos, and recording and sound studios. All were among the buyers shopping the NAMM Show.
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The diverse mix of industry professionals resulted in a business-focused, yet vibrant, show, with 93,908 total registrants.
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No shortage of attendees echoed the business-of-music theme.
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“We were approached by many potential new business partners, so it became an even broader type of business show,” said Tony Moscal, general manager of business development for Peavey. “We’re glad to see that NAMM's provided with a full representation of an industry business show in addition to traditional retailers. This has been one of the most exciting, rewarding shows that I’ve been involved with since my first NAMM Show in 1981.”
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Billy Cuthrell, owner of Progressive Music Center in North Carolina, said, "I attend for the latest, greatest and best our industry has to offer. This show was rich with industry trends, the latest in gear and top notch sessions at the Idea Center.” He added, “I consider my time at NAMM a major part of my business success throughout the year."
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While musicians and celebrities visited booths and explored new products and live music was ubiquitous, NAMM's official line remained, "the resounding sentiment on the show floor was that the industry was getting down to business."
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Roland's president, Kim Nunney, said, "Roland Corporation U.S. is very pleased with the 2013 NAMM Show, and activity on our new booth and location." Nunney added, "Traffic was steady throughout the show and dealers responded very positively to our new products, Content Checkpoints, and media stage. A great show, we're looking forward to a strong [business year in] 2013."
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*  New Presences, New Energy
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Enthusiasm ran high among NAMM Show first-timers, including two members of the team from the Acoustic Americana Music Guide. Apps and software, new technologies for acoustic guitars, electric and acoustic instruments made by "3-D printing," and performance accessories all drew crowds.
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“I’m freaking out,” said Mike Miltimore, founder of Riversong Guitars in British Columbia. Miltimore’s business card also bills him as "Passion Igniter," and with his incandescent grin it is easy to see why.
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Miltmore brought his patent-pending guitar design to the show for the first time, unsure if he would meet his goals of finding more international distribution.
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“At the show, we’ve seen big-time interest from countries I did not even know existed,” he said, adding, “I also wanted to connect with my current dealers, and NAMM is the place to do that.”
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Serenely regarding the brisk business at his booth and his smiling, upbeat crew, Miltimore seemed satisfied, saying, “This is beyond my wildest expectations.”
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New exhibitors accounted for 20 percent of the exhibiting companies this year. Another 118 companies returned to NAMM after a year or more off.
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"The increase is a subtle indicator that the music products industry is stealthily creeping back onto terra firma," concluded NAMM in a post-show statement. Not so subtle is the vibrant, positive feeling among new exhibitors, some of whom came to NAMM because they felt the time was right to expand their businesses and gather input from the music-making world.
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Buyers make a point to find new products at the show. “Coming to NAMM is my mental catalog for the rest of the year,” said Clark Baker, owner of Clark Baker Music in El Centro, CA. “I always walk every row and see everything I can because you never know. You could be out there, and Wow! That’s a new thing! I’m so glad I saw that.”
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* More NAMM Coverage Ahead
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The Acoustic Americana Music Guide will continue our current in-depth series on new innovations, music and sound products, software, hardware, and instruments that debuted at NAMM.
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Meantime, the NAMM site has a fine section on the proven benefits of making music, along with a whole lot more. Of course, if you're in the music industry, there's a page on their site that attempts to recruit you (which might fit nicely with your needs). Check it out at www.namm.org.
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More of the Guide's NAMM coverage in the next edition.
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