As I have for the last umpteen years, another NAMM show came and went—and I was at most of it. Usually, I attend Thursday through Saturday, sitting Sunday out. This time, I managed to get food poisoning* from lunch Friday, and was out for the count from Friday evening through Saturday. This sucked, not only for the obvious physical symptoms which makes one feel as close to dying as a healthy person ever wishes to feel, but because I missed out on some events I was looking forward to. But I was back in the saddle on Sunday, so while I personally missed out on some fun, I was able to attend all my work-related meetings.
Saturday is normally the busiest day of NAMM, but this year Thursday and Friday felt busier than usual. And indeed, the organization reports that there were 95,709 attendees this year, a record for the 110-year old trade show. While I dearly missed sharing meals with my out of state and international friends on Saturday, I can’t say I missed trying to fight my way through that crowd!
As much as NAMM is a playground for those of us who want to see what is new and up-and-coming in the music technology and music instrument space, it’s a place for work, and lots of business goes on. In that capacity, my coworkers and I had meetings with companies about partnerships and authors about writing opportunities and books in progress, and they all went very well. To be honest, better than I’d expected, and I’d not expected any to go badly. And it’s always great fun and a real pleasure to spend time with my co-workers; they’re great people, we get along very well, and the four of us are spread out across three states, so I always enjoy our get-togethers. So I’d have to say that this was a successful show for us.
On a personal note—food-borne badness aside—it was good as well. I got to see some good friends and old acquaintances in the industry. I’ve mentioned in my previous NAMM postings that it’s not nearly as much of a kick to just walk around and browse all the toys this many years out, but I did manage to sneak in a few hours between meetings on Thursday, Friday, and Sunday to see nearly everything I wanted to. This isn’t a “gear blog” but I do have one over at emberafter.com/geartalk/ so I’ll have a few notes up there soon about a few things I liked. But overall there weren’t a ton of new things that made my spider-sense tingle. Unfortunately, the few that did had marital-harmony-hostile price tags.
Don’t they always?
* It seems like this was not isolated by any means. By the end of the show I’d been told of 7 other people who got food poisoning eating lunch in the convention center environs on Friday—including a good friend and collaborator—and that’s only in my small circle. I wonder if some supplier or distributor was liberally sprinkling bacteria on the food delivered to the Anaheim Convention Center restaurants to serve on Friday. Either that, or I need to stop ordering the Botulism Salad with a side of E Coli.
