# NAMM 2018: Gibson no-show confirmed



## catsass (Jan 5, 2018)

I thought some of you might be interested in this:

NAMM 2018: Given NAMM’s status as the musical instrument trade show, you’d expect an appearance from one of the biggest names in guitars to be a given, but Gibson will not be attending this year.

Rather than its customary third-floor stand at the Anaheim MI staple, the company is instead focusing its efforts on the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, which takes place on 9-12 January 2018.

The move seems to tally with Gibson Brands’ recent statement regarding the shock move to end development for Cakewalk music software, where it stated, “The decision was made to better align with the company’s acquisition strategy that is heavily focused on growth in the global consumer electronics audio business under the Philips brand.”

As well as Philips, the ambitious group also plays host to audio companies TEAC, Tascam and Onkyo.

This year's no-show follows 2017’s rather sparse Winter NAMM stand, which featured a few new Custom models, but was more notable for its absence of a much talked-about, mysterious new solidbody design, which was showcased instead to tech-heads at CES. That guitar was later released as the Modern Double Cut and finally made its NAMM debut in Nashville in July.

Last year also saw the sale of the company’s Memphis factory, which itself came amid profit warnings.

Thoughts?

SOURCE:
http://www.musicradar.com/news/namm-201 ... -confirmed


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## TheNorseman (Jan 5, 2018)

It's just the evolution of the industry. We're seeing way less live rock bands and less big studios to more small production. When was the last time someone actually miced and recorded a drum set? Guitar amps are slowly going away. MIDI is getting huge.
Everything is promoted completely different and with all of the new creative avenues, people don't need all the huge resources and capital anymore.

EDIT: As a guitar player who used to own amps and cabs, I'm personally excited about the direction things are going. Back when I used to play in bands, everything was a pain in the ass, from collaborating, trying to put together crappy demos. All those things have been solved now to the point where you can collaborate with someone from different continents now.


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## Mike Greene (Jan 5, 2018)

This is really surprising. NAMM is expensive, but it's not _that_ expensive. The main purpose of the NAMM show is to let know music retailers know, _"We've got exciting stuff here that you should sell in your stores!"_ To not show at all sends the opposite message.

It's almost like Phillips is doing to Gibson what Gibson did to Opcode and Cakewalk.


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## synthpunk (Jan 5, 2018)

They didn't want to face @chillbot


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## catsass (Jan 5, 2018)

It's unfortunate because I was really looking forward to checking out the Les Paul MOM (Milk of Magnesia). Oh, wait. That's Phillips, not Philips.


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## TheNorseman (Jan 5, 2018)

catsass said:


> It's unfortunate because I was really looking forward to checking out the Les Paul MOM (Milk of Magnesia). Oh, wait. That's Phillips, not Philips.





I had to google Milk of Magnesia


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## DocMidi657 (Jan 5, 2018)

I would add some thoughts about Gibson not attending NAMM and this is completely speculative. I worked full-time in the MI industry on the manufacture's side from 1985 to 1996 for some large companies. Namm Shows were obviously really big deals for us especially pre-internet days as it was a way we could get in front of all our dealers and show them the latest stuff. Obviously once the internet got going it became a whole lot easier to demo the gear worldwide then just at winter and summmer NAMM or doing clinics at local music stores. Another big reason aside from showing off the the latest gear and quite honestly a much larger reason for attending NAMM (for hardware manufacturers) was to "open new dealers" but if you are a manufacturer where you have a "limited dealer distribution philosophy" and have all the dealers you need... then going to NAMM and the expense and energy involved may be reconsidered. I say all this and wonder if possibly Gibson has all the dealers they currently want/need and that was one of the reasons they bowed out this year?


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## chimuelo (Jan 5, 2018)

Behringer won’t be attending NAMM 2019.
I’m thinking NAMM has become like brick & mortar stores.
It will get phased out over time.
Booth babes are going to become extinct.
I always wanted NAMM and AVN to share a week together in Vegas.


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## Nmargiotta (Jan 5, 2018)

With AES teaming up with NAMM for the first time this year you can see them adapting for sure. It is still the largest show annually to hit Anaheim, in fact the giant expansion was pushed so hard because NAMM needed the space. I think we will see increasingly smaller booths from guitar/amp companies (even by the heavy hitters case and point Gibson) and nice sized booths from guys like Spitfire! (Last year was pretty impressive @christianhenson )


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## chillbot (Jan 5, 2018)

synthpunk said:


> They didn't want to face @chillbot


No shit.


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## synthetic (Jan 5, 2018)

Gibson has like 12 dealers, they don’t need to do NAMM. They also have a huge tent at CES that eats a lot of their tradeshow budget. TASCAM/TEAC have their own booth.


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