BY GEORGE VARGA
Timing is everything for the NAMM Show, the world’s largest and oldest trade event for the creators, manufacturers, retailers and distributors of music instruments, equipment, technology, sound, lighting and recording gear, and more.
This week, for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown began in March 2020, NAMM — short for the National Association of Music Merchants — will hold its annual winter summit in its traditional, four-day January time slot.
“The Federal Reserve Board recently announced it will be lowering interest rates, so it’s a perfect time for our industry to come together at the 2024 NAMM Show and make plans for the future,” said John T. Mlynczak, President and CEO of the Carlsbad-based trade organization.
This year’s edition will run Jan. 25-28 at the 1.8 million-square-foot Anaheim Convention Center, the NAMM Show’s longtime home. More than 3,000 brands will be unveiled by 1,600 major and independent companies who come from 101 countries and territories in the $19.5 billion music products industry. Long a members-only event, the NAMM Show is now open to the ticket-buying public at large, although its target audience remains music-industry professionals.
The four-day extravaganza will feature more than 200 concerts and 500 events. These include the 39th annual NAMM Tec Awards, which honor audio professionals and innovative products; the 22nd annual Parnelli Awards, which honor live-events professionals; and the She Rocks Awards, which honor female musicians and will this year be hosted by 2015 She Rock honoree Susanna Hoffs of The Bangles.
For 2023 She Rocks honoree Mary Spender, a British singer-songwriter who attended her first NAMM Show in 2015, the four-day event is a must. Ditto for her 700,000-plus YouTube followers, who avidly watch her online reports from the floor of the sprawling trade show and her year-round reviews of instruments and…
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