NAMM goes live once again
Giant music trade show returns in person but keeps pandemic-era online presence
For the first time since January 2020, the annual NAMM Show will return to the Anaheim Convention Center.
The NAMM (National Association of Music Merchants) convention — which has been held in Anaheim since 1978 and has drawn over 115,000 registrants from over 130 countries in more recent years — pivoted to an entirely virtual event in 2021 due to the pandemic. But this year it’s back June 3-5 with a hybrid show that includes a scaled-down, inperson event and on-demand and livestreaming options.
“I think we’re all feeling very excited about getting the band back together again,” NAMM CEO and President Joe Lamond said during a recent phone interview. “It feels almost brand new, like the first one in so many ways. We’re feeling nervous, but it’s a good energy as we head into it.”
The convention is typically a weeklong industry event that includes performances, seminars, workshops and classes and a massive marketplace. While closed to the general public, the event allows some of the industry’s biggest brands and buyers from all over the world to come together to do business and check out the latest innovations in musical products, recording technology, sound, lighting and more.
Lamond said that by going virtual, the convention had been able to reach a larger audience, with people registering and participating from over 180 countries, but the human element was missing.
“We just didn’t get that accidental meeting in the lobby or that unexpected conversation or that random meeting that sparked an idea,” he said.
This year, NAMM is also launching its NAMM Show+ app, which will include all of the livestreaming and on-demand performances and workshops, as well as help those attending the in-person event more easily navigate the convention. It’s also a way for all NAMM badgeholders, attending the event inperson or virtually, to communicate.
“The unanticipated benefit of the NAMM Show+ is that it’s an extra networking tool for those in attendance,” Lamond said. “You can also multitask. You can be watching a session while you’re headed to another meeting or watch sessions on demand once you’re back at your hotel room. For many countries, there are still travel bans in place or other restrictions that kept us all from being together, so this is the next best thing. But I never want it to be represented as a replacement or an equivalent to the actual show because it’s really not.”
NAMM is typically held in mid- to late January; Lamond said moving it to June and scaling it back was a compromise and the first step in bringing it back full-scale post-pandemic. NAMM announced it will move its 2023 convention to April and make a full-capacity return to January in 2024.
The first big convention to be held at the Anaheim Convention Center since 2020 was the Natural Products Expo West, which drew about 60,000 people in March. It brought in an estimated $2 million in hotel revenue plus more to local restaurants, shopping outlets and theme parks, according to Mike Lyster, chief communications officer for Anaheim.
“In normal years, NAMM is essentially a small city within Anaheim,” Lyster said during a recent phone conversation. “The return of NAMM is not a full-scale return, but that’s OK. As with everything with the pandemic, nothing comes back 100%, but coming back like they are is fantastic. We would estimate they would be on par this year with what we saw with Natural Products, with about the same size and impact, and that’s great. As we move forward from here, we would expect to see NAMM return to the place it’s always held in our city: the largest show in our city.”
As a warm welcome back to Anaheim, the NAMM Show will kick off with a performance by the Disneyland Band before it launches into a flurry of activity. Some of the bigger talking points of this year’s workshops are diversity and inclusion, education, sustainability and the industry’s impact on the environment.
“We are asking what our industry’s role is in sustainability from our manufacturing and distribution all the way down to touring,” Lamond said. “And what is the artist’s role or the event technology’s role in moving these little productions around the world, sometimes in a very heavy carbon footprint? Will touring change? Will sets become less complicated so they don’t require a dozen semi-tractor trailers? I think that’s a discussion we’ll be having and continue to have, and NAMM is the perfect platform for that sort of think tank to occur.”
Lamond started at the NAMM Show in 1983 when he was just 22, and he insists that, as many innovations and products the convention has launched and as many awards as it has given out, it has always been and will always be more about the people that support the convention year after year.
“I get to be around the passionate people who are involved in bringing music to our world,” he said. “I’ve seen everyone on Zoom calls and that’s great, but I’m ready to see everyone in person. At the same time, we’re all different. We’ve been changed and we’ve lost people. Our tribute that we do for those friends and family we’ve lost in our industry — there are about 280 people in that tribute this year . ... That’s the reality check of it all. So this year, I will be more appreciative of the people I’m able to hang out with. I will be more attentive, I’ll listen more and find out what people are up to, and maybe just take the moment in more.”