After returning from this year’s NAMM show, I’m finally starting to recover. No, this year I didn’t succumb to the dreaded NAMM-fluenza, or whatever they call that mysterious malady that comes from shaking the hands of 10,000 infected people, but NAMM is set up as a non-stop rock ‘n’ roll party packed into a four-day weekend. That isn’t to say that in-between the fun, there isn’t business (and a lot of hard work) squeezed in there as well, but for anyone who’s never been to a NAMM show, well, let’s just say it can be an intense experience.
Now don’t get me wrong — NAMM certainly does have its advantages. Over that four-day marathon, you can meet up with — or randomly run into — nearly everyone in the business, along with a lot of people who clearly aren’t in the business.
Audio Assault
And there are plenty of distractions along the way. I was trying to have a midday meeting with some key pro audio players in the Marriott Hotel bar and was barely able to have a conversation, due to the 135 dB music performance emanating from a stage set up in the lobby — and that was a solo acoustic guitar singer/songwriter. Don’t worry, by evening it got a lot louder when the rock bands hit the stage, and the situation was equally noisy in the Hilton lobby, just across the street.
Aye, there’s the rub. During your NAMM experience, you might be on the receiving end of audio assault in the hotel lobbies, or the slightly over-amped evening concerts in the new park-like outdoor plaza in front of the convention center or by daring to walk through Hall D, which specializes in drums and percussion. Yet at the same time, the House Research Institute was giving free hearing exams in the basement hall and H.E.A.R. (Hearing Education and Awareness for Rockers) was handing out brochures and earplugs in the in the atrium at the convention center. Hey, I like some loud rock every once in a while too, but there definitely were some very mixed metaphors going on.
Yet among this conclave once limited to music merchants (NAMM once stood for the National Association of Music Merchants; now it’s the International Music Products Association), you can find every category of industry pros. These can range from manufacturers, to reps, dealers, wholesale buyers, importers, suppliers, distributors, retailers and an increasing number of contractors and sound/lighting companies. Many of the latter also do installations and sales, so they also fit right into the NAMM equation, and given the number of companies that schedule their rep/distributor meetings right before or during NAMM, the show makes for a convenient meeting place.
In many ways, NAMM reflects a microcosm of the real world. We who work in professional audio are always straddling the line between pro and M.I. — and that line continues to blur more every day. Just walking the show floor I was checking out D.A.S. Audio’s new Aero 40A line array — unquestionably, a decidedly pro product — and it was being unveiled right across the aisle from some guy hawking the cheapest plastic $99 DJ mixers I’ve ever encountered. And so it is in the real world, where products such as Shure SM58’s and JBL EON’s are found in many music stores, yet also have an equally valid place with serious professional users. The same could be said for Radial Engineering’s brilliant new StageDirect, which is a direct box with a mute switch that lets performers change instruments without kicking in a destructive whump that blows out half the voice coils and diaphragms in the sound system. Just another example of a “great for wedding musician or arena tour” product.
A Little Feedback
I recently began a discussion on ProAudioSpace.com, where I inquired what some respondents thought of the NAMM experience. One person lamented that NAMM doesn’t offer demo rooms where you can actually listen to gear without hearing a quick 30-second snippet (before the NAMM sound police come by) while some guy 30 feet away insists on trying out every amp in the booth to show off his chops doing the “Smoke on the Water” riff. It’s pretty hard to argue with that observation, yet at the same time, does spending 10 minutes hearing CDs in a curtained InfoComm demo room really reflect how a system may sound in your house of worship install? Unfortunately, there are no easy answers either way, but having access to a demo rig in your own place of business or venue is probably the best solution of all, especially for a serious prospect.
Speaking of prospects, any industry trade show (demo rooms or not) can provide ample opportunity for networking, and I always return from shows with a ton of leads, prospects and opportunities culled from both scheduled and entirely random meetings. The same could apply to online encounters, whether on forums or Facebook, and whether you’re seeking advice, opinions or solutions. Maybe there is something to this idea of communication, after all…
For George Petersen’s 2013 Winter NAMM report, CLICK HERE
