When the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) announced a drastic pandemic response plan for its trade shows in 2022 and 2023, no one could really know if the decisions to delay and change the events calendar would be the right thing to do or a disastrous strategy. With the 2021 NAMM show canceled and the 2022 show moved to June, the NAMM Board of Directors decided to also move the 2023 edition to April 13–15, before returning to its traditional dates in January 2024, creating a sort of a transition period.

If anyone had asked me (and some did) I would have advised against holding this off-cycle NAMM in April. But it wasn't my call. I just know that I decided early on to attend both the 2022 show in June, and this year the (unusual) April event - and I'm glad I did, even with the overlaps and the uncertainties. Because as we saw last year, the NAMM show never disappoints.

I have returned from the NAMM Show 2023, which this year took place in April, and I can confirm that it was a great show. Most of the exhibitors that I visited have confirmed their satisfaction with the event. And there was a very visible indicator on the number of new product announcements to confirm that the show was needed and important - even in April. Could the NAMM Show 2023 have been promoted in January as usual? It could have, given that 2023 has already seen a return to normality in most of the industry's trade show calendars. But the NAMM’s decision had been taken earlier.

Now, I cannot say this reflects everyone else's impressions. As I also observed this year, this NAMM has caused irreparable damage. We tend to forget that there are always people and businesses that attend for the first time, couldn't care less about how it was before the pandemic, don't really care about the NAMM's mission for the music, or the fact that the show was founded in 1901, and that this is one of the oldest and most successful trade shows in the world. The fact is, I heard people say they were disappointed not to see the large guitar companies, or many of the leading pro audio manufacturers that attended in 2020 and that they expected to see them again. And who could blame them?

Yes, some people attended for the first time and thought the NAMM show was not as strong as they were told... Even for companies who sit right at the heart of the music business, the absence of some of the big brands caused some worries and cast doubts over the future of the show. There is general satisfaction with the business levels that resulted from this edition, and everyone agrees that "nothing beats spending time face-to-face," but focusing only on B2B is not sustainable for the NAMM format. The whole industry needs to be on board in supporting its association’s aspects and principles. Companies selling finished products, deviating to promote events in hotels (when everyone is in town) and not exhibiting at the show is destructive, and the most reprehensible practice - particularly at this critical transition moment.

No matter how much I try to explain that this April NAMM was an unusual event that doesn't define in any way what the NAMM Show is all about; that many companies did not invest in large exhibits in 2023 because they know they will be back in less than 9 months; that the trade attendance for the NAMM Show this year remained extremely strong, which is what matters, etc.

For some people, this was a bad NAMM Show, and it sends a message that it will never be the same again…

When there’s no reason for it not to be even better.

A word about attendance. As I wrote in many previous NAMM show reports, unlike what is common practice in my other trade shows, the NAMM has never felt the need to boost the attendance numbers. And the reason is obvious. The NAMM would just need to facilitate more public invitations - distributed by the MI industry - to literally "open the flood gates" of music fans who would never resist attending a show about music, and see music personalities in their natural, working environment.

And that is why I felt the urge to write this week about the NAMM Show 2023 - even though I already attended the NAB Show in Las Vegas as well (and it was much more vibrant, and there is much more to tell).

I feel that it is important to say this out loud: The April NAMM Show was a great demonstration of how important and successful this trade show is. Even under the most difficult circumstances, completely dislocated from its traditional model, it remained a very solid event. And I have no doubt that 2024 will be a return in full force to something new - and likely even more vibrant.

Many other trade shows all over the world faced the same exact dilemmas when they cancelled events all together, or when they pushed dates forward, sometimes inevitably clashing with other sector-relevant industry events, and very often, compromising the very same logic of why a specific trade show occurs at a certain time of the year. The global COVID pandemic made us rethink some of those "truths" that we have always held as dogmas.

Over decades we heard countless times those justifications: it's when the retailers renew stocks, it's the annual budget approvals, proximity to Christmas, etc. Many times, we could question if in fact those calendars remain relevant, and the pandemic disruptions showed that sometimes those are just irrelevant assumptions in the face of the new market realities. Sometimes, accelerating changes is for the better, other times it can destroy whatever's left of a fragile construction. Apparently, that's not the case with the NAMM show.

A large reason why the NAMM show has expanded so successfully in the years before the pandemic was because the NAMM has always successfully encapsulated its original mission to promote music from education to performance. Founded in 1901, the NAMM's mission is to strengthen the music products industry, and promote the pleasures and benefits of making music. The NAMM has always remained a successful organization, because it always remained on track to fulfill its mission.

We have all seen how the NAMM show, particularly since the inauguration of the two large new Anaheim Convention Center (AAC) North halls, was able to grow even more, by accommodating the professional audio and entertainment technologies sectors - which have reinforced the "trade" attendance aspects. In 2019 and 2020, the NAMM show had its strongest editions of all times because of that expansion that increased its B2B dimension.

At the same time, the Integrated Systems Europe (ISE) trade show in Barcelona, promoted by AVIXA (InfoComm) and CEDIA became a mammoth annual global event with a huge momentum, even though its focus has always been strictly on the systems integration and installation aspects - not the entertainment industries. But inevitably - in particular because Messe Frankfurt has killed the prestigious Musikmesse, and now inevitably also doomed Prolight+Sound - ISE is successfully attracting the same audio and stage companies that focus primarily on the concert, touring and live performance (entertainment) market. It's not sustainable for ISE for multiple reasons, but that expansion in Europe is now a fact, and it promises to shake many established foundations in different industries, including established trade shows such as the NAMM show.

Let's just look ahead to 2024, when the NAMM Show is scheduled to return to its normal timeframe, from January 25–28, 2024. The ISE Show in Barcelona is scheduled to take place from January 30 to February 2, which I can anticipate will lead many large audio companies - particularly European manufacturers - to reduce or even cut their presence at one of the events. The 2023 edition of the NAMM Show promises to be a return to its original, successful formula, but it might see an impact on its International projection. And that's bad for everyone.

In its preliminary results of the 2023 show, NAMM confirms 46,711 attendees, representing 120 countries and territories. More surprisingly, international attendees, previously restricted by pandemic measures, accounted for a 64% increase in attendance, year over year. It was also visible the presence of many more Chinese manufacturers - in what was their very first chance to get back to the International market - happy to be there even in April.

The NAMM is a not-for-profit association that promotes the pleasures and benefits of making music and strengthens the $17 billion global music products industry. It depends on its trade show to serve its members, the industry, and ensure the growth of NAMM's Circle of Benefits model. The promotional slogan for the NAMM Show in January 2024 is, not surprisingly, "The Right Place, the Right Time."

The Klippel Near Field Scanner System (NFS) was used for the critical testing and measurement of Holoplot's X1 Matrix Array compensation algorithm capabilities. All our readers who have appreciated the story of the development of the unique Holoplot technology, published in the September 2022 issue of audioXpress, will enjoy reading how Klippel and Holoplot worked to overcome frequency absorption and gain reduction challenges that resulted from the need to conceal the X1 systems behind an acoustically semi-transparent projection panel. This article was originally published in audioXpress, December 2022. Read the Full Article Now Available Here

There seems to be a lack of consideration and understanding of the acoustical characteristics of the loudspeaker’s many glue joints. In this article for Voice Coil, Mike Klasco and Steve Tatarunis detail how the influence and use of glue joints and diaphragm treatments can be used as a design tool. The report also details some significant new material options and design and measurement tools available. This article was originally published in Voice Coil, July 2017.  Read the Full Article Now Available Here