How will the NAMM Present — the world’s largest and oldest annual musical instrument, gear and know-how present — pivot again to being a dwell occasion this weekend after canceling final 12 months’s version due to the COVID-19 pandemic?
- By continuing with an abundance of warning and by providing onsite speedy antigen and PCR testing to attendees, together with N95 and surgical masks.
- By shifting from its conventional wintertime slot to June, streamlining this 12 months’s version from 4 days to a few and consolidating it with the 2022 summer time NAMM present, which can resume in Nashville in July 2023.
- By spacing exhibit areas farther aside on the Friday-through-Sunday, members-only occasion on the Anaheim Conference Heart and lowering its footprint by 50% within the 1.8 million-square-foot heart and several other adjoining lodge ballrooms.
- By debuting NAMM Present+. It’s a 24/7 interactive unified platform that builds on final 12 months’s first-ever on-line NAMM Present — the free, five-day “Consider in Music” week — to attach manufacturers and attendees in complete new methods. NAMM Present+ is open to all present registrants and accessible from anyplace on the planet for individuals who can’t attend in individual.
- And by introducing color-coded badges that can allow every attendee to silently sign how a lot bodily contact they’re snug having. Inexperienced signifies hugs and handshakes are welcome; yellow signifies fist bumps and different minimal contact; purple signifies a desire for no bodily contact.
“We all know the pandemic shouldn’t be over, though I might say it’s releasing the grip that has been controlling our lives,” mentioned Joe Lamond, president and chief government of the Carlsbad-based Nationwide Assn. of Music Retailers.
“The producers of ‘Sesame Road’ used to say that each season is their experimental season. Effectively, that is our 121st experimental season,” Lamond mentioned.
“We’re nonetheless feeling the influence of the worldwide pandemic, the availability chain issues, and all the opposite points which have arisen on this interval. However we’re placing the band again collectively. We’re able to do the present. And we all know how to do that.”
NAMM President and CEO Joe Lamond presents San Diego singer-songwriter Jason Mraz with NAMM’s Music for Life Award on the 2020 NAMM Present in Anaheim.
(Jerod Harris / Getty Photographs for NAMM)
Downsizing and increasing
Greater than 3,500 manufacturers of devices, sound and lighting gear, recording gear and different merchandise from as much as 1,000 corporations might be displayed at this weekend’s NAMM Present.
That could be a 50% drop from the 7,000 manufacturers exhibited by 2,000 corporations on the 2020 version. Attendance this 12 months is predicted to be not more than half of the 115,000 in 2020.
Furthermore, some main manufacturers which have lengthy been NAMM Present mainstays might be absent, together with Fender and Paul Reed Smith Guitars. Additionally sitting out this 12 months’s version is Gibson, whose portfolio consists of Mesa/Boogie amplifiers, Gibson Professional Audio and such famous guitar traces as Gibson, Epiphone and Kramer.
A Gibson consultant informed the San Diego Union-Tribune that the choice to skip this 12 months’s version relies largely on timing.
“Noting that our European vendor base shouldn’t be attending NAMM in Anaheim in June — and as a result of date shift and points with compressed timelines and logistics — we won’t be attending,” the consultant mentioned by way of electronic mail.
“This isn’t a everlasting transfer. … We’re supportive companions with NAMM and can proceed to be.”
The absence of such main corporations might be palpable.
Even so, this 12 months’s NAMM Present appears to be coming at an opportune second for an $18-billion-plus international business that in 2019 noticed the U.S. market prime $8 billion for the primary time. That determine dropped to $7.3 billion within the U.S. in 2020 due to the pandemic, whereas the worldwide complete dropped to $16.9 billion.
However market earnings rebounded dramatically in 2021 to simply over $8.9 billion within the U.S. — regardless of live-music occasions being dormant for many of 2020 and portion of final 12 months, which introduced gross sales of audio and lighting gear for live performance venues, church buildings and different venues to a near-standstill.
How, then, did general gross sales bounce to $8.9 billion final 12 months?
Credit score the unprecedented demand for devices and recording gear that can be utilized at house by customers.
“Final 12 months was the most important gross sales 12 months in U.S. historical past. There was a world bump as properly, if not fairly as massive,” mentioned Brian Majeski. He’s the president of Music Trades, a New Jersey-based firm that tracks the worldwide music merchandise business.
“College band instrument gross sales have been curtailed and dwell sound gear took a success as properly,” Majeski continued. “However gross sales for something you’ll be able to play at house went via the roof. There was a torrent of stimulus cash and other people have been caught at house with money of their pockets.
“Guitar gross sales jumped from 2.8 million earlier than the pandemic to three.5 million, and it was the identical with keyboards. Most corporations have been supply-constrained, or their gross sales would have been even increased.”
A younger attendee performs on an Aroma digital drum equipment on the 2019 NAMM Present on the Anaheim Conference Heart.
(Icon Sportswire / Icon Sportswire by way of Getty Photographs)
Face-to-face interplay very important
The approaching return to an in-person NAMM Present is welcomed by Yamaha Corp. of America President Tom Sumner, new Taylor Guitars honcho Andy Powers and Sammy Ash, whose Sam Ash Music has 45 shops nationwide, together with six in Southern California.
“We’re a really touchy-feely business,” mentioned Ash, talking from his New Jersey workplace.
“I’ll solely see somebody for 5 minutes on the NAMM Present, however these 5 minutes are essential. And there are particular belongings you would possibly say or talk about that gained’t occur on a pc, sure nuances you gained’t catch on-line.”
Whereas Yamaha and Taylor can have a smaller footprint and fewer staffing than at current editions of the NAMM Present, each corporations share Ash’s enthusiasm in regards to the significance of face-to-face interplay.
“Not having an in-person NAMM Present in Anaheim final 12 months impacted us,” Yamaha’s Sumner mentioned, talking from his Buena Park workplace.
“It’s powerful to get folks enthusiastic about new musical devices on-line as a result of the devices are so tactile. For retailers and musicians, not having the ability to contact and play them makes it that rather more tough.”
Yamaha will unveil 20 new merchandise at NAMM, together with its motorcycle-inspired Revstar guitar line and the most recent iteration of its $150,000 flagship CFX Grand Piano. As in earlier years, Yamaha will this weekend host a number of main outside live shows within the plaza subsequent to the Anaheim Conference Heart. They’re free to indicate attendees.
Taylor Guitars President and CEO Andy Powers on the 2017 NAMM Present in Anaheim.
(Daniel Knighton / FilmMagic)
Taylor, whose 2021 gross sales surged to a document $148 million, may also unveil new merchandise, most notably its new Koa 700 acoustic guitar line. For retailers and musicians alike, the attraction of those and different devices is finest heard and felt in individual.
“NAMM did a terrific job of pivoting to on-line final 12 months and it was completely the appropriate factor to do,” mentioned Powers, who on Monday was named Taylor’s new CEO and president.
“However there’s one thing that occurs in individual — the human interplay with folks and devices — that may’t occur on-line. And the NAMM Present is sort of a household reunion the place everybody from each side of the business will get collectively to speak store, consider devices, see what’s coming subsequent, or simply meet up with previous buddies.
“It’s a singular occasion that I’ve attended since I used to be a child. The taking part in of devices and making music are very human experiences, so it is smart our business may be very relationship-based. You possibly can’t actually do this by scrolling round on the Web. That’s why the NAMM Present feels extra vital now than it’s ever been.”
Lamond introduced final 12 months that he would step down as president and CEO after the 2021 present, however the pandemic put these plans on maintain. He has agreed to remain on till after the c 2023 version, scheduled to return to its normal January time slot.
“Like most individuals, for me the pandemic and its influence on our world and households got here as a completely unanticipated occasion,” Lamond mentioned.
“So, this isn’t in any respect the way in which I anticipated issues going for NAMM or the present. On the identical time, I’m grateful I’m nonetheless in a position to be part of it and grateful for the chance to assist the business come again collectively once more.
“We left the 2020 NAMM Present on a terrific path and with unimaginable optimism for the 12 months forward. Then, six weeks later, the pandemic hit — and it’s not over but. That’s why this 12 months’s NAMM Present might be half the dimensions of final 12 months’s, each when it comes to sq. footage and the variety of registrants.”
What’s going to future iterations of the NAMM Present appear like?
Lamond anticipates hybrid occasions like this 12 months’s version, which mixes the in-person gathering with the net NAMM Present+.
“It’s positively a time to reset numerous issues in life, and a chance to see what was actually valued in gathering on the NAMM Present,” he mentioned.
“And, for us, what it got here all the way down to is that individuals needed to get collectively, even when it doesn’t [mean] having enormous displays of latest devices and equipment. Many corporations informed us: ‘We would like smaller assembly rooms to satisfy with our prospects and make plans for subsequent 12 months.’
“In some circumstances, having the ability to get collectively and meet in individual is extra vital than having the type of enormous, sensory-overload NAMM Present we had in Anaheim in 2020. So, we’ll see what the 2023 and 2024 exhibits appear like. And we’ll by no means, ever say the pandemic is gone.”
By the numbers
NAMM gained’t launch its full 2021 international gross sales report till later this summer time. However the nonprofit group did present some preliminary highlights that illustrate how dramatically the demand for some devices soared final 12 months.
- Gross sales of acoustic guitars elevated by 15.6% and the retail worth of these guitar gross sales elevated 14% to $1.1 billion.
- Gross sales of electrical guitars elevated by 30.7% and the retail worth of these guitar gross sales elevated by the identical quantity as properly, to $931.3 million.
- Acoustic pianos gross sales elevated by 37.7% and their retail worth elevated 46.7% to $309.7 million.
- The varsity music market, which plunged in 2020, noticed will increase in each product class. The overall market was up by 11.8% in devices bought and elevated 18.5% in retail worth to $651.3 million.
- The skilled audio market — which incorporates loudspeakers, energy amps, sound mixing consoles, cables and microphones — grew 16.5% in retail worth to $1.5 billion.
