Piano World Home Page Forums Fun Stuff! - Parties, Tours, Projects & More... Forum Members Parties, Tours, Cruises, & Meetings Picts & Comments from NAMM 2007

As Briguy65 said, the Anaheim Convention center is huge. NAMM takes over all 4 floors, with displays of every imaginiable musical instrument and music related products.

Pianos are just one component.

Some more picts and stuff.

This is the 12' Rubenstein.
Del (Fandrich) tells me the man who built it did it because he always wanted to build a 12' piano.



Some more piano booths...


The man on the right walking by the Brodmann booth has the look we all start to get by the 3rd day.




Our friends at the PTG...


The Geneva International Booth.
They had a huge display as usual, but they were in the same area with the band and string instrument displays. I'm not sure why they set up here every year, you can barely here yourself talk.



Another Shot of Geneva.
I was going to see if I could chat with some of their folks (3 or 4 of them weren't busy when I came by). They seemed to have no interest in coming over to me.



Bluthner was right across from Geneva, in the same noisey neighborhood.

One more picture ...

Yes, that's Larry Fine and Dino standing off to the right side of the picture.


I ran into Steve Cohen in the SMC booth, had some interesting conversations.
Steve, thanks for introducing me to the president of Samick, and to Jay Cross, Norbert and Rick Jones.

Piano Peddler it was good to meet you in person.
Speaking of the Piano Travelers Association (Piano Peddler convinced me to join a couple years ago), I ran into Wilton by the Hilton (no, this isn't leading to a joke).
Wilton is like the grand old master of the Piano Travelers. He told me this was his 57th NAMM show!

I spent a fair amount of my time at the show trying to talk with the manufacturers about advertising (on PW). Most of them seem to be receptive to the idea, particularly after I told them about my piano site rankings post ( http://www.pianoworld.com/ubb/ubb/ultimatebb.php?/topic/1/16715.html ).

Those of you groaning and rolling your eyes, feel free to send me large checks or bags of cash so I won't have to solicit advertisers.

If/when they do come on board, I will try to keep it to a minimum and unabtrusive.

About the show:
Overall I got the impression it wasn't doing as well as it did 2 years ago (the last time I attended). There just didn't seem to be the same amount of excitement and energy in the air.

Of course, that's just from my limited perspective, and feedback from a couple dealers and exhibitors.

I'm sure we'll get a better picture of it when the trade magazines report back (I'll let you know what they say).

Speaking of exhibitors, BossieEric - I tried 4 or 5 times to catch up with you but you were always busy. Luckily the attractive/pleasant young lady at the front counter also had a sense of humor.

A few of the people I spoke with indicated they didn't feel NAMM was doing enough at the grass-roots level to inspire new musicians.

I know NAMM has the new "Wanna Play?" program running now, don't know how successful it is.

There is so much competition for people's attention these days, it's more difficult to convince them of the pleasure and satisfaction you get from making your own music.

I did get comments from a number of people about how much they liked the Forums Parties idea.
As they said, it's wonderful to see people getting together to share their love of music.

For those of you who asked me about the new Mason & Hamlin B, I only played it for 2 minutes, in a crowded room. M&H promised to have one available for our tour group in May, so we should be able to get about 40 people's opinions after that :-)

It was fun to revisit old friends, and meet some new ones. The show is always interesting and I never get tired of seeing all those beautiful instruments.

I'm hoping some of our other members will post their thoughts and pictures.
I've got to go get ready for the long trek back east now, hate to leave the warm sunny climate here but it's time to head home.

Best,

Frank B.

Interesting about Mr. Baxter getting snubbed by Geneva. I seem to recall a very similar comment from a previous show made by a self-interested anti-Petrof relentlessly propagandizing retailer-Piano World poster called Norbert. Yet so many others have mentioned receiving a warm welcome at Geneva. Coincidence?

Frank- these are great updates and very interesting. Hopefully we will hear from others too and soon.

I think they are confusing posts/poster's with Piano World.
No company is immune from criticism (including PW), it just happens to be faster and more public on the Internet. Smart companies figure out how to leverage the Internet, including how to utilize sites like ours.

I've received direct emails from Geneva Intl. before, they were always polite and cordial, even if they were expressing displeasure about a post.

I think eventually manufacturers and reps will figure out Piano World is not out to get them, and that it can actually be a benefit to them (branding, advertising, communications, maybe even voluntary surveys or interactivity).

As I said earlier, some of them already get it.

Marketing on the Internet is not like any other media. The traditional channels do not usually provide for instant feedback/reaction and/or interactivitiy. Anyway, I'm starting to get off topic here. Back to the NAMM thread :-)

Frank,

The post was quoted from Page 1 of this thread.
Please tell us more about your encounter with the poster and his booth.

All of those beautiful pianos!!! Now where do they go? How does it work? Are the pianos auctioned or sold to dealers who label them as NAMM pianos thus advertising a discount to the public?
Who gets to go to the convention? Only dealers?
Thank again for your replies Frank and all the pictures. It is nice to put a face to a name.

Any pictures of the new Grotrian 208?

Nice pictures Frank, and thanks for keeping us posted.

Cheers,

David

Great job Frank! Thanks for the pics and the comments. I don't blame you for going for some advertisers. Everyone has to make a living.

Frank:

It was great pleasure to meet you, regrettfully only very shortly under the circumstances of some black magic thrown in at the very moment by Steve Cohen....

I would have very much loved to have your perception of things and perhaps offer a few of my own in the mix.....

Brick said re being 'snubbed' at the Geneva stand, something that also happened to me last year:

Brick: you may wish to know that the person who did this to me last year, took the oppportunity this time around to 'apologize' to me re the incident.

The same person now also acknowledged the correctness of my perception of things and the circumstances which may have led to it.

The individual now works for a different company.....

Warm thanks to all I had the pleasure to meet, say 'hello' and chat a bit about things.

Including many of my own respected competition.

Norbert

Thanks Norbert, it's always nice to be able to put a face to a name. Sorry I didn't have much time to chat.

It was a fun show for me, although I'm a bit tired. Got in about 2:00 a.m. this morning.

I didn't take as many pictures as I would have liked, spent too much time trying to connect with the manufacturers marketing people.

My thanks to the members who helped me make those connections.

I'll try to write a little more later, got some catching up to do. Unfortunately, my email program ate a bunch of emails, I'm not sure how I'm going to figure those out.

I was happy to see one of the manufacturers is working on a new version of their web site, and has done a lot of things right.

It looks like they actually took the time to think about what their customers (the public and their dealers) would want.

The UI is nicely done (user interface), it has a lot of usefull features, and they are using audio/video the way it should be used.

I don't want to say who it is because I'm not sure if they want anyone to know until they launch, but I'll certainly let everyone know when it's live (other manufacturers could take a lesson). I believe it's going live in Feb.

To those of you at the show who wanted to talk more about advertising and/or utilizing my SEO services, please make sure you send me a reminder email.

More later.

Hi Frank.

Great pictures. To bad we didn't take one when we met.

Are you going to do the advertising idea I suggested?

Also, I saw Stevie Wonder too....but he didn't see me!

Did you get any more stuff for the Piano World Contest we talked about? (More on this to come!)

I think next year I'll bring someone with me who can take pictures and collect stuff for me :-)

I just sent you a PM about the contest stuff.

Frank,

Thanks for maintaining what you thought was a confidentiallity on the outstanding website. However, it isn't necessary.

The competitors will be envious when they see the new website. It will be launched by Samick in the next 30-60 days at www.smcmusic.com.

Ok, since I missed seeing almost all of you guys (and other piano guys, like Larry Fine, Franz Mohr (who I don't think was there - anyone know if he's still around?), and others) at the conference (and the couple I did see that said they're on the forums, except for Don Mannino, I wouldn't remember by now), what's the chance that you guys will be at the Cal State convention next month near San Fran? Or should I start thinking about making plans to go to the PTG national convention in June in KC?

Hi Frank:

I also returned home at 2 AM from Los Angeles and am playing catch-up today. It was good hanging with you and Steve Cohen at the SMC booth and meeting both of you in the flesh; too bad we didn't think of taking a picture of the three of us for PW. I enjoyed your other pics.

Since the National Piano Traveler's Association has their get-togther on Wednesday night before the show opens, perhaps next year we could organize a PW party on another night at one of the hotels there. All we would need is a hospitality suite or meeting room, one of the suppliers to furnish a grand piano (we couldn't have a party without one of those), and refreshments. Maybe we could find some sponsors to help cover costs, or like the NPTA, charge a nominal fee to defray the expenses of the party. All the forum members that are involved at the show would want to attend, as well as dealers and no doubt some industry folks that monitor the forums. Even the non-industry forumites that live in the area would be interested in participating. It could grow into a pretty good-sized gathering.

In response to the inquiries about attending the NAMM show, it is "closed" to the public and the only way to gain admission is to have an official name badge from NAMM that needs to be ordered from a dealer/member or supplier. Teachers, technicians, and even friends/customers often can get their local dealer to order a badge for them, which needs to be done several weeks in advance. As an FYI to anyone that wants to attend at the last minute, even if they have a badge issued to someone else, the security at the show is getting tighter and they require a photo ID to match the name on the badge before they let anyone in the door.

I have attended nearly every NAMM show since 1967 and the public always finds ways to gain admission. In all fairness to the manufacturers and dealers that spend much money to attend the show, they are there to conduct business with each other for a short period of time, and consumers at the show can be a distraction from that process. Perhaps one day the music industry could put on an event like the automotive dealers do in major cities and invite the public.

Anyway, I hope the NAMM show was beneficial for you and look forward to seeing you next year!

Yes - seeing all that blue sky affected me the same way.