A few newbie questions pertaining to NAMM exhibitors

As a fairly new ukulele player, a majority of my knowledge pertaining to the countless manufactures and ukulele models has been obtained through watching NAMM YouTube videos posted by Ukulele Underground and ukulele reviews posted online.

Through watching the NAMM videos posted online (2011 - 2015) by Ukulele Underground, I've noticed that when Aldrine asks to hear a sample of the ukuleles being exhibited, the exhibitor occasionally attempts to hand the ukulele to Aldrine or simple strums without actually playing it.

My question is, why wouldn't the companies exhibiting ukuleles have someone available who can demonstrate the playability of their products?

Honestly, I can't blame them for wanting Aldrine to play their ukuleles considering his abilities, but does the fact that Kanile`a `Ukulele produces an "Aldrine Guerrero Model" ukulele prevent Aldrine from demonstrating other companies ukuleles at NAMM?

I've also noticed that several of the ukuleles being highlighted by the exhibitor are completely out of tune. Why wouldn't they have someone tuning the models that they wish to highlight (I'd assume that most have fairly new strings and require constant tuning)?

The short answer is that some of those "ukulele companies" are just businessmen who don't play ukulele and just jumped on the bandwagon when ukuleles got popular.

While I've never been to NAMM, exhibiting at tradeshows is a big part of my job. As it happens, I have a pretty deep knowledge of my company's products & services, having come from the design & development side of the business. But the reality is that many, many tradeshow booths are staffed with people from the sales & marketing part of the business, which often means they have a broad knowledge of what the company does, but not a deep knowledge of any one product line. And in the case of NAMM, they may not be musicians, or multi-instrumentalists.

From what I've seen, many larger companies *do* have professional musicians in their booths to demo their wares, but that costs money, and not everybody can afford it, or afford it all the time. There are also realities of tradeshows-- people have to eat, use the bathroom, scope out other vendors-- so "the ukulele guy" may not be in the booth all the time. And I imagine people are in and out of those booths all day, grabbing instruments and trying them out. Keeping dozens of instruments in your booth all in tune is a big job. Yeah, they should do it-- but the booth personnel are talking to potential customers, and may not be able to prioritize it.

Finally, remember that NAMM is primarily aimed at people who sell musical instruments, not at consumers. The fact that consumers are there at all is a function of some NAMM members sharing expo passes-- technically, only merchants are admitted. So the overall approach of the show, I imagine, is probably much more on the commercial end ("Can I make money selling your product?") than on the musical end ("Is this uke fun to play?").

hoosierhiver said:

The short answer is that some of those "ukulele companies" are just businessmen who don't play ukulele and just jumped on the bandwagon when ukuleles got popular.

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You can easily generalize this to some of those music companies are just businessmen who don't play.

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As for getting high level - or even proficient - musicians to come and perform/demonstrate at your booth, it's incredibly difficult. Not only is the flight expensive, but the hotel prices are in the same area as Disney, so they're really high. If a musician is coming of their own accord, you can attempt to schedule them to play at the booth. Sometimes, musicians (and not just the big guys) will want some sort of compensation to help offset the price of getting out there.

And then trying to schedule someone to be there when your being interviewed is another matter entirely. For me, I literally turned around and the guys from UU were there, asking who to talk to for an interview. Thankfully I was in the booth, and was elated to talk about uke strings. But that's not always the case, and I've had a ton of "_____ stopped by to see you, but you weren't here" messages, as there is a lot to do at NAMM from my perspective.

Having Aldrine interview someone and then play their uke at their booth for the sake of the interview is hardly an endorsement infringement.

As for being out of tune, NAMM has a lot of people. A lot of people. And instruments go out of tune from playing them. As much as I tried to go around and keep the two dozen instruments at our booth tuned, many of the musicians I talked to tuned them as well. Keeping instruments perfectly in tune all the time just won't work. It just won't.

The people on the floor seem to be sales people, because they're trying to get sales. Some of them do bring musicians though, and some of the sales people are musicians, like Ken Middleton.

I think Aldrine doesn't play the ukes because he doesn't want to introduce bias, or imply endorsement.
I think it's just to stay politically neutral so to speak.

I really doubt Joe at Kanile'a would every pressure anyone to play or not play anything they didn't want to. That guy is soooo chill it just doesn't seem to fit with him. If you're playing his instruments, it's because you want to. I can't see him wanting it any other way.

hoosierhiver said:

The short answer is that some of those "ukulele companies" are just businessmen who don't play ukulele and just jumped on the bandwagon when ukuleles got popular.

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As long as they're providing a product that serves a need, there is nothing wrong with that.

JCryan, NAMM is an industry show, not a consumer show. I've been the last two years thanks to a friend in the industry who gets me passes. The people working the exhibit booths are there to showcase new product to existing and potential retailers. They talk required volumes, margins, etc. The ukulele specific companies (e.g., Ko'olau, Kanile'a, etc.) generally are full of people who play. The broader musical companies which sell many different instruments, often do not. Even so, some of them will have uke talent in their booth at various times to play and showcase their product. When an artist is playing at a booth to showcase product, they plug into an amp.

Generally, the show room floor is crazy noisy. As in really loud. You cannot really hear the instruments in a way that allows you to judge their sound. This was a great disappointment to me my first year as I expected to play and hear lots of instruments. You can visually inspect them and feel playability, but I certainly wouldn't make judgements on sound in that environment.

I greatly appreciate everyones feedback. I misunderstood to whom the product was being promoted (I'm still happy to see individuals such as Aldrine making that information available to us consumers).

I've never attended a trade show and simply figured that any local ukulele enthusiast would be more than happy to continously tune the ukuleles simply to be there.

JCryan said:

I greatly appreciate everyones feedback. I misunderstood to whom the product was being promoted (I'm still happy to see individuals such as Aldrine making that information available to us consumers).

I've never attended a trade show and simply figured that any local ukulele enthusiast would be more than happy to continously tune the ukuleles simply to be there.

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Thanks for starting this thread; I've learned quite a bit from it!