The total — the buying power of 20,400 FRONT of HOUSE readers — racks up to an impressive $4,939,000,000 — nearly five billion dollars. Compared to the pharmaceutical and automotive industries, the audio production and installation markets are fairly small. We as an industry may represent a market that’s admittedly “small,” yet nonetheless is thriving and even expanding. And with that in mind we would like to present some solid information as well as some indicators on the relative size and health of the event audio and installation markets.
So far this year, various physical indicators have been pointing in an upward direction. These are represented by several measurable factors, including an increasing number of installations (both large and small) in all market segments — house of worship, educational and performing arts facilities.
Upward Activity Indicators
Another key indicator comes from the strong turnout and positive vibe at recent tradeshows, such as AES, LDI, Winter NAMM, ISE Amsterdam and USITT, while there’s equal excitement about this month’s Musikmesse / Prolight+Sound and NAB expos, with genuine enthusiasm among users for recent major sound reinforcement product launches. And it’s not just talk, as among the NAB and Prolight+Sound unveilings slated for later this month are major new digital console products and line array systems.
Trade expos in past years have mainly focused on a lot of incremental improvements in existing products while offering few “must-see” big hits that everybody would buzz about. And now we are (and have been) seeing the floodgates open in the current new product development cycles.
Advancements such as these don’t simply happen overnight, but stem from a direct result of years of planning by companies that see opportunities and feel confident enough in the overall industry/economy to invest serious R&D resources and capitalization into new products.
As an example, the concept of a rack-mounted digital mixer that’s tablet controllable (including some that are 100 percent under Wi-Fi control) is a product that simply didn’t exist three years ago. Yet at this past Winter NAMM, I saw nearly a dozen such offerings, from several manufacturers.
But whether with consoles, line arrays, microphones plug-ins and ancillary products, this type of growth and expansion in the business is good news for both manufacturers and their customers alike and is a positive sign for 2015 and beyond.
It’s a win-win in the truest sense. Manufacturers have more offerings and users have more selections to choose from, and a competitive market makes for better products all around.
Looking For — And Finding — Answers
If there’s a downside to all of this, it stems from the market itself. Hard figures and data about the strength, size and spending power of our industry are difficult — if not nearly impossible — to come by. Now if we were in those aforementioned pharmaceutical or automotive industries, there would be no shortage of facts and figures to call upon. In fact, I would wager to guess that worldwide market for shirt buttons far exceeds the size of professional event and installation audio.
Unfortunately, we as an industry are not represented by a single large trade group — such as the AMA — that’s equipped with the deep pockets to fund any such research. So in search of some answers and insights, we at FRONT of HOUSE recently ran an intensive survey of our readers (selected on a nth-name basis) and received a statistically significant number of replies — some 1,200 — representing approximately 6 percent of our total 20,400 readers. The results were both interesting and informative.
To download a PDF of the “State of the Industry” feature from the April 2015 issue of FRONT of HOUSE magazine, CLICK HERE.
