A quantitative analysis of NAMM 2012

[Clueless]

I spent yesterday walking the floor at NAMM, and here are a few impressions:

1. It's BIG
2. It's LOUD
3. It's a SMALL WORLD

Within 5 minutes of hitting the show floor, I bumped into Todd Atlas from SoundPure (Durham NC), who was also walking the floor. North Carolina rocks! I also found Steve Carr (Pittsboro NC) with no trouble at all.

With that intro out of the way, let's get down to the numbers. USA Today quotes NAMM President Joe Lamond saying that "sales for the $6.6B industry rose 3% in 2011". So let's say that the NAMM market is $6.6B. The NAMM brochure claims that it occupies 800,000 sq ft of convention space, which means that walking around the floor, one can visualize how $6.6B spreads across 800,000, or about $8250 of revenue per sq ft. of convention space.

Put another way, every square foot of space is a proxy for generating $22.60 of sales per day. Now, look at how much space you occupy when you are standing still, and total up what it costs to keep that square foot alive: food, rent, utilities, and coffee. Just a thought...

[bigwebb83]

interesting analysis you've done there.

[Jim Williams]

Same movie, different cast.

Pretty much a re-run of last year. Last year was the year of the guitar pedal. This is the year of cheap chi-com mics, there are thousands of them!

Maybe karaoke will come back next year? My wife misses that.

[greyskull]

Surely that's a qualitative analysis?


*ahem*

end pedantry

[idylldon]

Originally Posted by Jim Williams

Same movie, different cast.

Pretty much a re-run of last year. Last year was the year of the guitar pedal. This is the year of cheap chi-com mics, there are thousands of them!

Maybe karaoke will come back next year? My wife misses that.

Agreed. Walked the floor all day Thursday and then went to the Martin guitar dinner/concert. All in all, it was nice seeing my friends but NAMM has lost its charm for me.

This is also the year of the ukelele. I think there must be a lot of lemming DNA in humans since we're so fond of trends.

Cheers,
--
Don

[thenoodle]

Originally Posted by idylldon

All in all, it was nice seeing my friends but NAMM has lost its charm for me.

NAMM .... Numbing Assembled Masses of Microphones

[EngineEars]

Originally Posted by thenoodle

NAMM .... Numbing Assembled Masses of Microphones

NAMM .... Not Available 'til Mid May

[depulse]

Originally Posted by EngineEars

NAMM .... Not Available 'til Mid May

They should rename it NAMMNY .... Not Available 'til Mid May Next Year

[slaves666]

I would name it........holy crap I saw Dave Pensado, Ross Hogarth and Chris Lord-Alge all at the same time at the Steven Slate booth....Howie Weinberg was on his way over but I had to meet my rep at ESP guitars. Really cool tips by Ross as well.

[AudioGaff]

Keep in mind that not all NAMM members attend the LA NAMM show or participate every year.

The expected attendance for the whole was just under 100,000

Also, not all the NAMM space is used for product display. There are other rooms not part of the show floor used for other things besides product display like NAMM dealer meetings, technology seminars, press junket rooms, storage, etc...

[jmcecil]

I thought this one should have been named iNAMM

[GilWave]

Originally Posted by greyskull

Surely that's a qualitative analysis?

110th NAMM Show Reaches New Record Number of Registrants; Industry Primed for Growth in 2012 | NAMM.org

95,709 attendees, up 6%

[greyskull]

Originally Posted by GilWave

110th NAMM Show Reaches New Record Number of Registrants; Industry Primed for Growth in 2012 | NAMM.org

95,709 attendees, up 6%

Touché

[tomdarude]

I hoped for much more "innovation" and exciting stuff to be honest, I was shocked at the pure amount of inspirationless 80´s style guitar stuff, 100´s of scratchy&boring sounding amps & guitars... (though the Jackson Amps were really cool and I played some awesome Trussard´s)... the guitar hall made me think it was 1983 again...too much bad taste....


the most interesting thing for me was definitely the Kemper Profiling Amp...
I can´t really see how I can not buy one

I also liked the Demeter RV-1 quite a bit, from what I could tell on the floor!

and besides meeting a lot of old fellows and friends I had some great steaks, grilled tuna (thx Robin!!) & awesome real "texas style BBQ" (thx Dusty!!)
I had at least an hour of chatting & a coffee with UBK once again, which unfortunately is a rather rare but always great way to spend one´s time!

soulfood: ....I saw the pacific ocean on Santa Monica beach.....


will I go the Namm in the following years?....rather not!
will I rent a nice convertible and take 3 weeks to drive through california along the coast?.....you bet!!

[Jim Williams]

Originally Posted by tomdarude

will I go the Namm in the following years?....rather not!
will I rent a nice convertible and take 3 weeks to drive through california along the coast?.....you bet!!

It's 80 degrees at the beach here today. 10 to 20 foot waves too, it's epic! If you come, you may never return.

California is the most beautiful place in the world.

[GilWave]

Originally Posted by Jim Williams

California is the most beautiful place in the world.

There are some folks in Hawaii, the Caribbean, and Turks and Caicos that may disagree with you.

[GilWave]

Originally Posted by tomdarude

I hoped for much more "innovation" and exciting stuff to be honest...

What? No love for Alex Aguilar's new HALO pedal? Pelonis 4288 monitors? SBS Designs ISO Q? Elysia Xpressor rack?

You hung around our booth long enough, what are we - chopped liver?