Silver Lining? Maybe?

“Sales of Instruments and Music Gear Are Soaring. Will Quarantine Spark a Renaissance?” reads the headline of a late April article in Rolling Stone.

As many MI retail operations have been struggling due to forced closures, it would certainly provide some welcome counterpoint to think that, when we do finally emerge from this mess, we’ll be welcomed by a slew of new music makers. In the meantime these “soaring” online sales during lockdown could provide a lifeline.

Reverb’s David Mandelbrot tells me, “People are buying from sellers on Reverb now more than ever. Compared to this time last year, sales in April were up more than 50 percent, with many of our sellers seeing order volumes among the highest they’ve ever been.” He points to new players as the driving force behind this phenomenon: “We’ve seen a dramatic influx of first-time buyers and a sharp increase in the amount of new gear being purchased on Reverb. This is encouraging because it points to both new players picking up an instrument for the first time and players shifting more of their gear purchases online.”

Sweetwater Sound’s Chuck Surack concurs, saying, “We have been fortunate to see an uptick in sales during the pandemic. There are customers who are now finding time to pick up a new hobby, so they’re buying their first guitar or keyboard. There are those who are quarantined so they’re upgrading their home studios and creating new music. It’s exciting to watch and to be able to play a part in it.”

Sammy Ash of Sam Ash Music Corp., however, doesn’t attribute the spike in online sales to first-time buyers, alone. “Yes, internet sales jumped, but not so much because of a ‘huge influx of beginners’ I keep hearing [about],” he says. “We did see a spike of new customers and beginner business online and over the phones, but I think it had more to do with 1,000 or so music stores being shuttered over a seven-day period. Just because you crimp the hose it doesn’t mean the pressure isn’t there. The real surprise was the amount of high-end guitars we sold. We are almost out of our higher-end Martin, Gibson, and Fender Custom instruments. We sold several guitars over $10,000 in the thick of all of this. As soon as people heard the factories were closing, they got nervous plus a lot were people treating themselves to a really nice instrument – ‘to wait out this storm,’ as one of my customers put it ,when purchasing a Martin D42.”

Of course, it’s not all great news. How could it be?

“Honestly, we didn’t see a huge uptick in band & orchestra instrument sales during the shutdown,” says George Quinlan, Jr. of Quinlan & Fabish. “From my friends in the industry, it seems like the B&O sector didn’t enjoy the big gains that ukes, keyboards, recording equipment, et cetera enjoyed.”

It’s not surprising that not all market segments are benefitting during these times. After all, a person stuck at home in a tiny apartment is more likely to want to strum an acoustic guitar than decide to learn to play the trumpet. However, to whatever degree online sales have helped some stay afloat during these first few months, and with the potential of creating a whole new population of dedicated music makers, maybe there’s a very real light at the end of this messy, frustrating tunnel.