innovative meetings Jennifer N. Dienst

Hitting All the Right Notes

The NAMM Show is a huge, rock-star–packed, decibel-bending, four-day mix of all things music — with a surprisingly simple pricing model for exhibitors.Convene was on site in Anaheim this year to see what makes the entire production rock.

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ach year, more than 90,000 attendees converge on Anaheim for the NAMM (National Asso-

ciation of Music Merchants) Show. It’s a 520,412-net-square-foot trade show for the $16.3-billion global music-products industry; a four-day series of concerts by hundreds of performers, from Sir Elton John to the Grammy Award–win- ning Mariachi Divas; and an educa- tional bootcamp on the latest in music developments — all rolled into one. But more than anything else, it’s a reunion. That became apparent the day before the 111th NAMM Show, which was held on Jan. 24–27, opened. I was standing in the lobby of the Anaheim Convention Center (ACC), looking out at a gray sky. The ground was wet from the drizzling rain forecasted to continue throughout the next few days. This was an anomaly for perpetually sunny Anaheim, and on this particular day, clearly bad timing. Tomorrow, the ACC was set to cut the ribbon on its brand-new Grand Plaza — a beauti- fully landscaped, 100,000-square-foot outdoor event space — and kick off the NAMM Show with soul group Tower of Power and about 12,000 friends. But Kevin Johnstone, NAMM’s director of trade shows, didn’t seem fazed. In fact, he seemed calm, even ebullient, about the days ahead as he took our group of journalists around NAMM’s show floor. In between taking calls, dodging forklifts, and saying hello to longtime friends that he was seeing for the first time in a year, Johnstone told us which celebrities to watch out for (Randy Jackson and Eddie Van Halen) and replayed some of the crazi- est moments from the last 18 years that

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he has produced the NAMM Show. We’d been there five minutes, and we were already part of the NAMM family. Music is big business, and the tight-knit, tattoo-emblazoned, band-of- brothers vibe we sensed at the show’s outset demonstrated that it’s an indus- try rooted in relationships. The NAMM Show “is not just a place for people to come and write and take orders,” John- stone said. “It’s a community reunion. Our members see the majority of these people once a year at the NAMM Show, so we try to enhance the experi- ence with live music and after-hours events so they can not only do business together, but renew their friendships every year.”

CAN YOU TURN THAT DOWN, PLEASE? Such a huge production comes with its own special set of challenges, and chief among them is the issue of sound. As we walked through the show floor, we

passed row after row of every kind of instrument imaginable, along with all of the accessories and amplifiers that can make them Jimi Hendrix–level loud. Add to this a roster of live-music performances that kick off and end the show every day, and it’s easy to see why sound-control officers — “noise narcs,” as Johnstone calls them — would be necessary. Not only do they patrol the show floor to make sure that exhibitors aren’t exceeding 85 decibels when dem- onstrating their products, they keep an ear on the live-music performances scheduled throughout the day inside and outside the convention center, to ensure that they don’t drown out important business deals. “We’re a music show,” Johnstone

said. “There should be live music and you should be greeted with live music. The challenge is making sure the live music isn’t having a negative impact on the exhibit experience. Our exhibitors

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ILLUSTRATION BY BECI ORPIN / THE JACKY WINTER GROUP