MI Pro

A lot of issues were raised at the second London International Music Show (LIMS) and all of them concerned the MI trade. By and large, everyone saw the public and education days as well attended and valuable in terms of brand profile, with the added attraction of thousands of kids getting all enthusiastic about being in a large hall full of musical instruments. (“I wish we’d had days out like this when I was at school,” was how Peavey’s Clive Roberts put it.)

Gripes from the 14,000-odd public visitors were confined to the disappointment from the drumming fraternity that so few drum specialists had decided to exhibit. From the trade perspective, this left the likes of Roland, Yamaha, Korg, Sutherland and Active Music to mop up where the no-shows had spilt.

Of those that raved about the show, Bose and Intermusic stand out, both because of the business done on the trade day and the fact that they sit at opposite ends of the MI market. “In the depths of a recession, it’s remarkable that the show happened at all,” said Intermusic’s David Rushworth. “For us it was a very successful show. We are very pleased.”

Another big thumbs up came from industry stalwart and Mariner Guitars chief Ken Achard: “As a follow up to last year's inaugural event at ExCeL, I thought the exhibition was another superb effort by the entire industry. Despite the difficult trading conditions, manufacturers and suppliers presented themselves professionally with notable investments in terrific displays. The MIA and the organising committee should be proud of a job well done.

“For us and our distributor, The Music Force, the show fulfilled its purpose absolutely. We successfully introduced Mariner guitars to a wide audience, sold product to retailers and were able to share our passion with many musician consumers. The MI industry is obviously alive and well. Bring it on for 2010.”

But for many, the trade day didn’t quite do it and Chris Statham of Mel Bay’s comment was typical. “Although we were very disappointed with the trade presence on the Thursday and Friday, it was great to interact with the consumers on the Saturday and Sunday,” he said. “You get to hear their opinions on our product and as we only supply the trade it is always nice to get the feedback from the end-user direct.”

Orange’s MD, Damon Waller, pretty much concurred, while raising a few other concerns as well. “My honest opinion is it was better than expected, but not good enough,” he said. “The trade day needs to be better organised. It is very frustrating having public wandering about when it should only be trade.

“The retail area worked relatively well being separated, although I agree with them that it needs to be in a more prominent position. Frankly, I find it a disgrace that certain distributors were selling directly to consumers by the end of the show, simply because they had no retail partner. I have said before we would not support another car boot sale.”

Roland’s John Booth, however was bullish. “Roland’s experience of LIMS was overwhelmingly positive, he says. “On the trade days, we saw all our major dealers and quite a few medium sized ones we didn’t expect.  We didn’t see many small ones, but that must be considered work in progress for all of us.  We did great business on Thursday – it was way over our target.  We did some trade business on Friday, but we’d like to see more dealers on this second day.”

Perhaps understandably, the reactions to the show received by the MIA were generally full of praise, although Paul McManus is very aware of the popular comment that LIMS doesn’t actually seem to know what identity to put forward.

“After years of the BMF, we knew that there was only one way to establish any sort of trade show in the UK and that was by using the consumer,” he pointed out.

“Dealers didn’t come to the BMF because a lot of big suppliers stayed away. Suppliers stayed away because they wanted public exposure. If there is one thing we have to do, it is to get the message across that LIMS is a consumer show. The bonus is that there is a special day – a preview day, if you like – for trade. Of course, dealers can come on any day they want, but the first day will have a quieter, more businesslike atmosphere.”

In order to further establish this facet of the show, McManus will be pushing for the abandonment of any special ‘preview’ tickets at a premium price for the public.

As for retailing from the stands, McManus would like to hear from anyone who thinks the £25 merchandising limit from stands was abused. “This shouldn’t happen. We were watching as closely as we could and didn’t see anything untoward. I know some exhibitors had no representation in the retail village and this is something we will be trying to address to make it an even playing field, but there cannot be retailing from the stands.”

One seemingly intractable issue that has arisen from the two shows, however, is the problem with the drum specialists.

Some say the problem was not the exhibition space, but having side attractions that would pull the public in. Others seemed to think the combined stand method worked well, but the drumming public weren’t keen on sharing their space with other musos.

“This could be a no-win situation,” admits McManus. “What is important, though, is for exhibitors to get in touch and explain how they want to exhibit.”

One thing is for certain, however, and that is that the retail village will be a permanent fixture for any future LIMS. While the four retailers who sold at the show were a little disappointed with the retail village’s location (as were the exhibitors trying to sell through them), the MIA is determined to keep this element of the consumer show. “It brings us back to the original point,” said McManus. “To get the exhibitors, you need the public. To get the public, you need retail. This is how we can continue to keep the trade day going.”

“Our business is about more than shifting boxes,” comments Rob Castle at Korg. “We have to encourage people and one way we can do this is by firing them up with the buzz that they get from a show like this, seeing products, demos, artists and performances. The show will never please everyone and we have plenty of ideas about how we can improve things for next year but there were a lot of consumers who loved it and will go away and spend the rest of the year saving up for their next instrument and hopefully spending it in their local music shop.”

RETAILING WOES

The retailing element is a tough one to swallow, particularly for the dealers themselves. “Many music retailers I have spoken too are not happy that there is retailing at the show – thus some of the retailers will not go to the show,” commented John Hulke of The Firm.

“Musikmesse and NAMM work well as trade shows and the public do attend, but there is no retailing and it works with big names attracting crowds. As soon as retailers get involved, the public expects everything to be heavily discounted.”

As we all know, the shows throughout the year are generally trade or consumer shows. Mixing both has its problems.

Location has been a point raised by those that did not attend, but anyone could easily argue that when the BMF was in central Birmingham, the trade complained about that location, too. The fact that some 45 Irish dealers turned up at LIMS speaks volumes. If you wanted to go, you would have gone.

In the end, with the limited time allowed, the MIA and its show organisers did just about enough to keep LIMS alive and to make the 2010 show happen. With a full year to make the next one happen, everybody will be watching closely to see how the shortfalls are addressed. With the SoS-sponsored Sound Recording Technology show appearing as busy as the guitar and amp element of the event (not to mention the standing-room-only SoS seminars), the danger is that the drums and traditional instrument elements might find themselves marginalised as the show concentrates further on the positive and profitable guitar market.

As Barnes & Mullins MD Bruce Perrin put it: “As a trade show there weren’t enough dealers to make the effort and cost worthwhile. As an international show, there was little public interest in anything other than guitars. As the London Guitar Show – great. Next year we will plan our exhibit focused on consumers interested in guitar and allied products. Do we as an industry actually require a trade show?”

To which the answer might be‘no’. But is there room for trade to hook on to the buzz of a public show? That can only be ‘yes’, surely?

PACING THE AISLES

Wandering round the hall at ExCeL on the education day, there was a palpable sense of, well, a day off school to be frank, but the excitement of the unleashed hoardes of
musically minded youngsters certainly gave the place an air of excitement. LIMS felt busy and full of life and by all accounts there was plenty of business going on beyond the screaming kids hunting down free plectrums to make the whole thing worthwhile.

The Marshall stand was big and busy, with some natty recent new products (the Haze mini stack for one looks and sounds particularly tasty) on show to tempt in the passing throngs. Signings were taking place and the ever-ready Jim Marshall was once again manning his post, pen in hand, welcoming in another long queue of grateful young Marshall fans. The gossip around Marshall all pointed towards some significant developments at the amp giant later in the year, so keep yours ears peeled come September.

Not far off from Marshall’s set up was the newly re-branded Music Force, which made its presence felt with some attractive eye-catching displays showcasing some of the many products that now accompany Ashton under the company’s banner. Of particular interest were the Sparrow guitars, which added a touch of rockabilly design flair to some classic guitar shapes.

Elsewhere at ExceL, Korg was well on the way to capturing some creative young minds thanks to the stacks of synths and Kaos pads it had on display. The constantly busy stand made it difficult for MI Pro to muscle through to get a swift couple of minutes on the Microkorg XL, but it was well worth the wait.

A familiar stack of Orange amps was a constant draw for guitarists looking for the classic British tone (and of course a photo opportunity beside the biggest wall of Orange amps ever seen), which meant a busy day for Damon Waller and the team.

Meanwhile, Freestyle showcased its latest addition: Hiwatt. With a display that rammed home just how many of the greats had or indeed still have a Hiwatt behind them, it’s clear that this is a partnership that will benefit both companies greatly. Freestyle kept its other key brands up front and centre as well, with Eko, Gator and Minarik all getting plenty of attention.

Finally, the prize for the busiest stand of the day was pretty much a dead heat between Roland and Yamaha. Both had an excellent array of chatty and entertaining demonstrators and both had a staggering amount of product on show. Roland’s V-Drums were a huge draw, with queues stretching back pretty much all day as eager young hands tried to get a chance to beat the life out of various models including the TD-12KV and the impressive TD-20K. A teaching area with a number of kits out for lessons was also a constant source of attraction, while the Boss pedals also drew their own crowds. Roland announced two new products at the show: the Juno-Di mobile synthesizer and the Boss FRV-1, a recreation of the classic 1963 Fender Reverb combo.

Yamaha had electric kits on display too, as well as the new S90XS and S70XS synthesisers on constant demo and drawing good crowds. The two new models share the same sound engine and internal operating system and are only differentiated by the keyboard lengths of 88 and 76 keys.

SPREADING THE WORD

The marketing and PR campaign of LIMS ran over six months, with its aim to create awareness and excitement around the exhibition. There were many specific objectives, including reaching out to the trade, the education sector and all the instrument and computer markets, as well as students, musicians and mainstream consumers – in fact anyone interested in music, gear and a fun day out.

The project encompassed the whole marketing mix and there were specific campaigns in London (coverage was secured in The Evening Standard with a ticket offer, the London Paper, London Lite, Time Out, XFM radio, Visit London and more), several promotions ran locally, including a feature in the Newham residents paper (105,000 circulation), Tower Hamlets websites, Britannia Village and BBC promotions, as well as using the marketing databases of ExCeL. There were several national promotions, such as with Tesco Clubcard and Network Rail. More than 60 regional papers, with a combined circulation running into millions, featured the show. 

Future Publishing was announced in early 2009 as a media partner. It has consistently supported the show with a lengthy marketing campaign through various mediums including a portfolio-wide advertising campaign for the event in its music titles. Online support was provided on Musicradar.com, which saw a site takeover for three months with regular news features, on-going promotion in the newsletters and a live blog produced just for LIMS (updated throughout the course of the show). Media partnerships with Sound on Sound helped bring in the music recording audience and further partnerships were developed with Rhinegold and Oyster House Media and, of course, MI Pro, whose support and coverage has been instrumental in raising the show’s profile to the trade.

There were over 500,000 leaflets placed in mainstream consumer music press, together with a significant advertising campaign taking in the likes of Q, Mojo and Kerrang. LIMS show promotions and new stories ran in Stuff, Mojo, Classic Rock, Kerrang, Q, Metal Hammer, NME, Rock Sound, Terrorizer and many more. In addition, an on-going campaign on the internet created coverage helping to direct people to the LIMS website, particularly Guitar Idol, which had 140,000 voters around the world for its final and millions of hits during the heats.

Commenting on the marketing, David Phillips from A & R marketing said: “Overall, more than 600 press cuttings were generated and we have achieved widespread coverage both locally, across the UK and internationally. The support from exhibitors donating gear for promotions has been fantastic and I would like to thank them for both their generosity and support in helping to promote the show. I can announce that journalists from more than 100 publications attended this year’s exhibition.”