Summer NAMM Is
BACK! First in-person NAMM Show in 18 months brought high spirits.
By Brian Berk
T
he Summer NAMM Show, which took place from July 15 to 16 at Nashville’s Music City Center, delivered “Good Vibrations,” as the Beach Boys so famously sung. A large contingent of MI retailers attended the event, with many saying they were so happy to see their peers for the first time in 18 months since NAMM last hosted an inperson event, The NAMM Show in January 2020 in Anaheim, Calif. NAMM hopes to continue the good vibrations when its hosts The NAMM Show, set to take place in person at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, Calif., from Jan. 20 to 23, 2022.
NAMM president and CEO Joe Lamond
The State of the MI Industry
Music on the Hill’s Lindy Campbell (left) and NAMM president and CEO Joe Lamond, as he Instrumental Music Center’s Leslie Stirm customarily does, kicked off the Summer NAMM event on July 15 with the “State of the Industr y Address.” He brought onstage some MI professionals who have handled the COVID-19 pandemic with aplomb, including Sam Ash chief operating officer Sammy Ash, Nick Rail Music’s Laura Penrose and Deering Banjo CEO Jamie Deering. Lamond’s address also featured an “exit inter view” with C.F. Martin’s Chris Martin IV, outgoing NAMM chairman. The end of the show marked the end of Martin’s tenure as NAMM chairman, and he was replaced in that role by Menchey Music’s Joel Menchey. “As we think about the future, we are going to be building a stronger ecosystem of musicmakers,” said Lamond. “Last year proved that when people are tested, they turn to music, as they always have. Our work is vital. Thank you for being part of that vision.” Lamond added it was “crazy to think” it had been two years since Summer NAMM last took place in person. “Our end zone was to bring everyone back together for the first time since the pandemic started,” he remarked. “We are an association. We associate. But everything is different from 2019 and January 2020. That’s why we felt it was so important to put a stake in the ground and be together. “Every retailer who got through the pandemic is a hardened general ready for anything. Ladies and gentlemen, I think you are the new greatest generation,” Lamond added. “What you have survived is incredible.” NAMM’s CEO noted, however, that everything today is different compared to before the
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Hal Leonard’s David Jahnke (left) and Alfred Music’s Ron Manus
AUGUST 2021
