Business as usual? Joe Lamond talks NAMM’s return and the future of the industry

NAMM president and CEO, Joe Lamond, has spoken to Headliner about the return of the show on June 3, the rebuilding job behind the scenes and why he believes there is a “great period of growth ahead” for the music and pro audio industries.

From June 3-5, the NAMM show returns to the Anaheim Convention Centre, California, for its first in-person outing in over two years. The last time the industry gathered for the annual expo was in January 2020, just weeks before the Covid outbreak that would stop the world in its tracks. In 2021, a digital iteration of the NAMM Show, dubbed Believe In Music, provided an online alternative, whereby participants could come together in the virtual world to check out the latest new product releases, interact with all manner of educational content and catch-up with colleagues via video call.

While Believe In Music certainly served its purpose, it was never going to function as a like-for-like replacement for the real thing. And, as Lamond explains during our conversation, the prospect of another year without an in-person NAMM Show was not something that he and the show’s organisers were willing to contemplate.

Here, we speak to Lamond about the decision to hold this year’s NAMM Show in June, what attendees can expect from this unique edition of the show and what the future holds for the market in 2022 and beyond…

How did you go about planning for this edition of the NAMM Show?

It’s almost been a case of looking at it as a start-up. It’s always been consistent, but because there are so many differences and not having done one in a couple of years, the labour pool has completely changed - not only the people who work on the production of the show but also a lot of the companies we work with. We are working with a lot of exhibitors this year who have never before done a show, so there is a lot of muscle memory that’s been lost. It’ll be a lot smaller, about half the size it was in 2020, which was the high point of 120 years of NAMM’s history. Now we need to reset and find that balance again.

Does approaching the show in this way present new opportunities?

This period has been a time of introspection and analysis – how can we do things differently? How can we do things better? I have this unique position of seeing all the companies, from guitar and keyboards to software, and everyone is trying to figure out what has changed permanently, what is going to come back, and what is still in this temporary distortion. The fundamentals of NAMM’s work is still to bring people together. Is that big, open plan with mega booths? We’re seeing a real demand this June from companies that simply want meeting rooms. There are still companies that want that traditional experience, but there are others who simply want a business platform. My view is that when people are back together again – and that is still new for a lot of people, especially with international travel – there is a euphoria that is palpable. And we miss that. The pandemic took a lot of that away from us. Everybody has had such different experiences and coming together to share all that and make sense of it allows us to look over the edge and say ‘what’s next’? I believe there is a very strong growth period ahead of us after this. Historically, that is what happens… for those that take advantage of it.

Presumably appetite for the show from those attending must be stronger than ever?

I think that’s what you’re going to see. I know it’ll be smaller and more focused on the people in the room. Here in the States, a lot of the big tech companies are very hesitant even to come back to the office. There is a hesitancy on the big companies’ part to get out and I’m not sure why. On the other hand, the entrepreneurial class, the up-and-coming companies are seizing the opportunities. There are some guitar companies that will be at the show that will have more opportunity to sell guitars to dealers, because some of the other companies are not going to be there. And what we’re going to be seeing is the creation of another new class of industry leaders. It may take 20 years, but we’re going to see the birth of the next Taylor Guitars because of this opportunity. That’s my projection.

Prior to the pandemic, the show was significantly growing its pro audio offering. Is that something that will continue this year?

That was our crossroads vision. The idea that all of this works together in one ecosystem. So, the growth area was very strategic, and all of that is still growing. The challenge we have this year – and it’s a happy challenge - is that that group very much prefers January. So, what we’re seeing is that a lot of those companies and people are out working again. My understanding is that there are more tours scheduled for this summer than probably any time in history and it’s going to limit the ability of some of them to come to the show. And we’re very happy that they are out working again.

How did you decide upon June for this year’s show?

These things take a long time to plan. When the state of California shut down, we were prohibited from doing anything in 2021. The decision wasn’t even in our hands. For 2022, we were trying to make the decision in August of last year, that’s how far in advance you have to commit to the space. We were in the middle of this thing called Delta – we weren’t even aware of Omicron yet. So once again we were told no events could take place in California at that time, so there was no indication we could put anything on in January of this year. We asked if we could get any other dates in 2022 – we just didn’t want to miss another whole year. And the only dates that could be found were in June, so it was a case of either doing the show in June or not doing the show at all.

Then, we were looking at if we could go back to January for 2023, but we thought that if we have a show in June, should we really be holding another one just six months later? So that’s when we looked for some dates to split the difference and found April for 2023. It isn’t until 2024 that we’re in January and back on our usual schedule. But we felt that having another year without the show would not have been good for the industry - we felt it was our obligation as an association to do something.

You can listen to an extended version of this interview below.