From jason_stanfield@mac.com Sat Jan 08 10:11:31 2011
Subject:Re: NAMM / what to look for?

Ventura won't be there this year.

We're still around and finishing up new products that will hopefully be released this quarter, but NAMM is just too damned expensive. Booth rental is $75/ft sq. plus power & backdrop & so on, you have to pay Union workers for practically everything but un/boxing demo gear, the food makes movie theater snacks seem like a bargain, no hotels within a half-hour drive are under $150/night, plus the airfare (esp. international), car rental, and so on.

On a side note: having been an exhibitor at NAMM, I'm becoming skeptical about the event's usefulness. Sure, you meet and get together with a lot of industry contacts, and it's a serious party - I truly love going - but I've noticed that the practical benefits aren't worth the expense. Retail attendance keeps falling, vendors keep dropping out or they're cutting back on booth space, personnel, & artist signings or other gimmicks, and fewer buyers actually place orders at the show.

Further, many of the big guys don't wait until NAMM to announce or release their products. SonicState, Harmony Central, Gear Slutz and other websites upload tons of videos to the web during the show, so people aren't there get to see what's up - sometimes before most attendees do!

Really the only things to miss are the excitement of the event and seeing industry colleagues. I don't mean to sound cynical, but it just seems that NAMM is becoming decreasingly effective as a means of getting one's products to market, and (for buyers) a means of discovering new gear. They either need to make it cheaper for people to go while cracking down on non-industry attendance, or go the other way and open the thing to the public so exhibitors can see some immediate return on the expense.

Jason Stanfield
Ventura Keyboards