It’s been a few years since the first day of SNAMM started with such hype. We heard this year would be better. We heard new programming and educational sessions would provide real tools to dealers to improve their bottom line. We heard about the new convention center.
SNAMM was built up so much… could it live up to the hype?
The consensus seems to be: if not “yes,” then “pretty darn close.”
You couldn’t buy a bad word about the facility, and most felt the show overall did indeed make it “back.” It certainly got off to a good start on Wednesday with Bob Negen’s Retail Boot Camp. Negen, who was running the camp for a third time for NAMM and is already penciling in a fourth one for Winter NAMM, said that attendance keeps increasing, and even those who had attended previous sessions had returned. One is Owensboro Music Center’s Gordy Wilcher. “Retail Boot Camp is a must attend event,” Wilcher declared. “I have attended all three NAMM events and brought home new, valuable ideas that I could implement now! I look forward to the next session.”
NAMM president and CEO Joe Lamond hit the stage of the Retail Summit breakfast on Thursday morning pretty much on fire. The summit was focused on specifics as he pulled up innovative retailers and energetically fished for real tools that all MI dealers can use specifically to increase their final quarter, which was disappointing for so many in 2012.
First up was a session with Chris Johnson (Musician’s SuperStore) and Gabriel O’Brien (Larry’s Music Center), the latter being an MMR cover story subject this past January. Innovative ideas and new best practices were laid out, ending with a visit by Negen, who gave his spin on maximizing holiday sales.
Industry Insight
“These are iconic heroes of mine, and to have all of them on stage here tonight is wonderful,” declared a genuinely giddy Lamond. And while what followed was designed as 60 minutes of no-nonsnese advice from pretty much the biggest collection straight-shooters in the business, the event expanded to include odes to an industry that the panel so clearly love. The session went over by 30 minutes, much to the audience’s delight.
Lamond exited staged right as hosts Vince Gill and Two Old Hippies’ Tom Bedell took the podium. Jim D’Addario spoke of embracing green technology, and of bringing much of his company’s production back to U.S. soil. He was blunt about the investment necessary in terms of training and dollars that an organization of any size must make from time to time, but and encouraged all, no matter what size, to do the same.
Following that theme, Bob Taylor spoke on Taylor’s success in setting up a factory in Cameroon, and what it means to be truly environmentally sensitive. “We have to look at tone wood differently,” he said.
When Bedell asked the panel what they learned from their father, Andy Zildjian got a big laugh when he responded with, “Don’t believe your own press, or you’ll make an ass out of yourself.”
Sterling Ball stressed the importance of looking outside our own world. Specifically he spoke of his foray into the world of barbecue, and what lessons he learned since founding his Big Papa Smokers. (Sterling is now something of a cable television star, being featured on TLC’s BBQ Pitmasters show – a television crew from the network was filming him on this panel.)
Hartley Peavey had the last words, and pushed the dealers in the crowd to strike out on their own. “To stay ahead of the competition, you have to know more about them then they do,” he says. “And you have to try new [products]. Finally, if you don’t have a passion for what you’re doing, get out of the business!”
The Show Floor
Often enthusiasm is fueled by the first-timers at a show like this. One new company, Pedal Stop, were showing off a product for keyboardists that stops “pedal creep.” It was a “why hasn’t someone thought of it before?” kind of tool. Thomas Hanes of Pedal Stop was pleased with the show from its opening bell. “I didn’t know exactly what to expect, but this is really exciting.”
Stories were being told and retold. There was one old name that was brought back from the dead: Longtime luthiers Mick Donner and Ben Chafin have worked for several of the big guitar makers over the years, and then found themselves in pursuit of the right to build new guitars under the old Electra name. A mid-level guitar put out by St. Louis Music in the 1970s, that company had stopped producing the brand and gave up the trademark on the name. Donner and Chafin pursued the right as a few others had the name, including Electra Records (“we had to promise we wouldn’t make LPs,” Chafin quipped, seemingly only half-kidding).
The two brought some old Electras from their private collection to show among their new models. “Everyone knows the name,” says Donner. “And we’re building them better then they were.”
Rick Carlson at the Kala booth declared that the ukulele craze continues with no end in sight. “I’m looking forward to expansion into the education market,” he said. “You think about recorders … they often don’t sound good and there’s nothing you can do [after you learn it]. But imagine ukuleles in the classroom. They are fun, parents like them, and it allows the child to move into guitar or other fretted instruments down the road.” He added that Kala just joined the National Association of School Music Dealers.
‘Music Industry Day’
The convention’s third day saw a diverse crowd who were happy to shell out $10 and mingle with the manufacturers and suppliers. The Yeas and the Nays could be roughly divided: The bigger the company was, the more likely the day was embraced. Smaller wholesalers and suppliers were less keen (the exception was the small guitar and effects maker, who loved the attention).
Yamaha’s Armando Vega was bullish. “How often does a consumer get to talk directly to the manufacturer?” he asked. “I get people coming up and saying they bought a bass of ours in say 2002, and go ‘I love it but I always wondered why it’s xyz,’ and I’m able to go, ‘Funny story about that…’ It’s great.”
“It gave us a chance to connect with the customer,” adds Teac’s Garyn Jones.
“It’s a complete waste of a day for us,” says Nova Strings’ Gordon Roberts. “Did you just see that kid? He came into my booth and picks up a $5,000 guitar. These people come in and touch our stuff, and all the dealers go home!” (One supplier notated that a high-end saxophone was placed back on the wall incorrectly and took a fall, causing several hundred dollars of damage, but he shrugged it off.)
Overall, most declared the show “better” than it has been. It will be interesting to watch and see if the hopefulness for the industry is based on something tangible, or if “flat” will remain the new “up” for another year or two. Will dealers continue to keep a lean inventory and not take chances, or will they take up Hartley Peavey’s advice to buy new and different inventory that was at this show?
Mark Herring of Eastman noted how the show has evolved. “It used to be someone would come in and you’d write up that $60,000 order,” he says. “Sunday night, we’d sit with the calculator, add it all up, and go ‘woo-hoo.’ Now it’s all done before and online.”
Randy Chaisson, who runs Gon Bops for Sabian, knows that dealers have kept their products sparse in recent years, but says “those who are gambling a bit [on beefing up inventory] are doing well.”
