For a lot of its 122-year historical past, the NAMM Present has served as an important financial barometer for the creators, producers, distributors and retailers of music devices and tools. It has additionally helped them to navigate surprising shifts in an business that noticed near-record U.S. earnings of $8.7 billion in 2022.
Over the previous a number of years, nevertheless, it has been the NAMM Present itself that has navigated surprising shifts. Lengthy held on the 1.8 million-square-foot Anaheim Conference Heart and in adjoining lodge ballrooms, the music business’s largest annual commerce present has modified course a number of occasions in the course of the world pandemic.
“We had our largest NAMM Present ever in 2020, with greater than 115,000 NAMM members attending from greater than 120 nations and territories. Then COVID hit and our ongoing four-year journey to get again to regular started,” mentioned Joe Lamond. He’s the outgoing president and CEO of Carlsbad-based NAMM — quick for Nationwide Affiliation of Music Retailers.
On account of the pandemic, the January 2021 NAMM Present was the primary held fully on-line as a digital occasion. Billed as Imagine in Music week, it was additionally the primary NAMM SHOW that was free and open to the general public, moderately than solely to dues-paying NAMM members.
Extra adjustments adopted.
On account of the pandemic’s Delta variant surge, the 2022 NAMM Present was pushed again from January 2022 to final June. It was trimmed from 4 days to 3 and decreased its footprint in Anaheim by 50 p.c.
Exhibitors on the 2022 occasion have been spaced farther other than one another and on-site fast antigen and PCR testing and N95 surgical masks have been obtainable to attendees. Coloration-coded badges allowed each attendee to silently point out the diploma of bodily contact they have been snug having.
Some main exhibitors together with Gibson, one of many world’s largest guitar producers, bowed out of the truncated 2022 NAMM Present.
Gibson — which appeared to have rebounded after submitting for Chapter 11 chapter in 2018 — can be skipping this 12 months’s NAMM Present. In February Gibson Manufacturers was downgraded by Commonplace & Poor’s over issues the corporate would possibly default this summer time on greater than $500 million in company debt.
2023 NAMM Present now underway
Stevie Surprise is an everyday customer to the annual NAMM Present on the Anaheim Conference Heart, the place he likes to check out the most recent new devices. He’s proven on right here on the 2022 version of the NAMM Present.
(Daniel Knighton / Getty Photographs)
Opting to err on the aspect of warning this 12 months, Lamond and the not-for-profit music commerce group pushed the 2023 NAMM Present again from January to this week.
It opens at this time, runs by Sunday, and can characteristic myriad performances, instrument and tools demonstrations, panel discussions and academic and enterprise seminars.
“That is one other pandemic-scheduled, off-cycle present for us,” mentioned Lamond. He has headed NAMM since 2001 and this morning will interview Rock Corridor of Famer John Fogerty on the NAMM Present’s standard Breakfast of Champions occasion.
“This 12 months will probably be 20 p.c larger for us than June 2022,” Lamond continued. “However it’ll certainly not be the normal NAMM Present measurement. Once we get again to January 2024, we’ll be again to to regular measurement.”
How difficult have the previous a number of years been?
“Nicely, I didn’t have grey hair earlier than!” mentioned Lamond, whose authentic plan to step down after the triumphant 2020 NAMM Present was stymied by the pandemic.
“We’ll have 1,200 exhibitors, up from 1,000 final 12 months, and our registrations to attend this 12 months from members exterior the U.S. are up 50 p.c,” Lamond continued.
“So, that is the primary NAMM Present since earlier than COVID the place we’ll get the music world again collectively in particular person. And there are some nations whose NAMM members solely see one another in particular person on the NAMM Present.”
These members embody Daniel Neves. He’s the São Paulo-based president of the Brazil Music Affiliation, which represents about 130 corporations. Neves can be the writer of the commerce journal Musica & Mercado.
“The NAMM Present is the place the entire business meets itself,” he mentioned, talking from his São Paulo workplace final week.
“It’s humorous that I speak in particular person with extra of my Brazilian music business pals on the NAMM Present than right here in Brazil. NAMM leads the business and will get folks impressed and excited. It’s simple to fulfill all people at NAMM and it’s rather more than a commerce present.”
Worldwide gathering
Daniel Neves, left, the pinnacle of the Brazilian Music Affiliation, first attended the annual NAMM Present in Anaheim in 2000 and is again for this week’s version. He’s proven right here final 12 months receiving an award from NAMM CEO and President Joe Lamond.
(Courtesy NAMM)
Neves’ sentiments are shared by Yamaha Corp. of America President Tom Sumner.
“The NAMM present is absolutely the worldwide gathering place for individuals who make, distribute, promote, service or play musical devices,” Sumner mentioned.
Yamaha will show a few of its newest devices and music-related merchandise throughout 15,000 sq. ft at this 12 months’s NAMM Present. The corporate will launch 39 new merchandise, greater than final 12 months however fewer than on the occasion’s January 2020 version. It should additionally host free outside live shows for NAMM attendees all through a lot of the weekend.
“NAMM is the one remaining main commerce occasion for musical devices and kit on the planet,” Sumner famous. “There was one in Frankfurt (Germany), the Musikmesse, however it didn’t make it out of the pandemic.”
Launched in 1980, the Musikmesse was shuttered by COVID in 2020 and 2021. The occasion’s organizers introduced its demise final 12 months, citing a decline in exhibitors and attendees (the four-day occasion was open to the general public on its two concluding days).
The NAMM Present, conversely, has weathered the ups and downs of the previous few years as nimbly as potential in such unpredictable circumstances.
Credit score goes to Lamond for his regular management — and to hovering client demand for musical devices, which skyrocketed in the course of the pandemic shutdown.
Whereas the live performance touring market suffered enormous losses in 2020 and 2021, final 12 months noticed the live performance business earn a record-setting gross complete of $6.28 billion, in response to Pollstar’s 12 months Finish High 200 Worldwide Excursions chart.
Guitar gross sales — which elevated dramatically in the course of the shutdown — dropped a bit final 12 months. However the demand for acoustic and electrical keyboards, professional audio tools and faculty band and orchestra devices elevated.
The 2022 U.S. market earnings of $8.7 billion, as reported by 132-year-old journal The Music Trades, symbolize a 2.3 p.c drop from 2021, which noticed a surge in gross sales in the course of the shutdown. Even so, final 12 months’s earnings are second solely to 2021’s file $8.8 billion.
“Total, the business is greater now than it was earlier than the pandemic,” mentioned Yamaha’s Sumner.
“The pandemic gave folks within the U.S. time to take up devices, whereas the federal government stimulus checks made it potential for lots of parents to purchase devices.
“And Joe Lamond has carried out a improbable job guiding us all for the previous 23 years and making all of the pivots in the course of the pandemic. This will probably be an emotional NAMM Present.”
Lamond’s successor, John Mlynczak, is the fast previous president of the Expertise Institute of Music Educators.
Sumner and Lamond have been each on the search committee to switch Lamond and each converse extremely of Mlynczak, the previous vice chairman of music schooling & expertise at Hal Leonard, the world’s largest sheet music writer. He’ll formally change into the group’s new head on Might 1.
“I’ll be CEO for another NAMM Present and I’ll be concerned with our NAMM education schemes for the subsequent three years,” Lamond mentioned.
“After I get up on Might 1, I gained’t should go within the workplace. I’ll in all probability go on a protracted motorbike journey!”
By the numbers
NAMM gained’t launch its full 2022 world gross sales report till later this 12 months. However it did present some preliminary U.S. figures for 2022.
- Complete U.S. music instrument and kit gross sales totaled $8.7 billion.
- Gross sales of guitars, each acoustic and electrical, noticed declines of 4.5 p.c (to $1.04 billion) and seven.7 p.c ($859.1 million), respectively.
- Guitar impact pedals gross sales elevated 7.6 p.c to $177.5 million and multi-effects processors elevated 2.2 p.c to $97.1 million. Unit gross sales of results pedals decreased 5.1 p.c to 1.4 million models. Multi-effect processors models declined 6.1 p.c to 185,000 models.
- All the skilled audio market elevated 0.5 p.c to $1.48 billion, with all classes reporting will increase.
- Keyboard gross sales, underneath the $199 worth level, elevated 11 p.c to $67.1 million. Unit gross sales elevated 3.8 p.c to 621,000.
- Acoustic pianos elevated 17.1 p.c to $362.6 million. Unit gross sales elevated 17.1 p.c, as effectively.
- Digital pianos elevated 3 p.c to $265 million, whereas models offered decreased 12.9 p.c to 203,400 models.
- The college music market did extraordinarily effectively. It noticed a leap of 13.5 p.c in retail gross sales to $739.3 million and 11.7 p.c in models to 800,000.
- Instructional percussion gross sales for varsity bands and orchestras elevated 12.5 p.c in gross sales to $49.5 million.
