From 12 to 15 March 2014, Frankfurt was once again the music sector’s most important venue for product presentations, networking and exchanging information. As in previous years, Musikmesse and Prolight + Sound, International Fair of Technologies and Services for Events, Installation and Production, attracted a broad spectrum of international visitors to Frankfurt. “A total of 107,629 visitors from 142 countries reflect the continuing high level of interest shown by the music and event sectors in innovations and new developments”, said Detlef Braun, Member of the Board of Management of Messe Frankfurt. “This year’s Musikmesse and Prolight + Sound were characterised by a high visitor standard and a willingness to place orders.” Altogether, 2,242 exhibitors from 57 countries took part in the two events. 65,362 visitors came to Frankfurt primarily for Musikmesse where they were able to discover the musical instruments, sheet music, services and solutions of 1,345 exhibitors from 51 countries. Lots of happy faces to be seen at the close of the four-day fair: 94 percent of Musikmesse guests said they were satisfied to highly satisfy with the results of their visit.
The mood on the exhibitor side was also optimistic: 73 percent rated the economic situation in the sector as being satisfactory to good while the Federal Association of German Musical Instrument Manu-facturers (Bundesverband der Deutschen Musikinstrumenten-Hersteller e. V. - BDMH) expects overall growth of four percent for 2014.
Musikmesse Director Wolfgang Lücke: “Musikmesse is not only a presentation platform for trends and innovations in the sector but also an important economic barometer. We are very pleased with the excellent indicators for 2014 evident at the fair and which reflect the generally high level of exhibitor satisfaction with the course of business there.” An equally positive conclusion was drawn by Daniel Sebastian Knöll, Director of the Society of Music Merchants e. V. (SOMM), who said, “This year’s Musikmesse was once again the venue for national and international business and music aficionados. It demonstrated once again that it is the market place and showroom for the musical-instrument business and numerous music fans.” The improving mood was also reflected by the statements of many exhibitors: “Following the difficult developments in recent years, we were pleased to see that numerous retailers and distributors were in the mood to buy again. For us, Musikmesse is an important tool for taking advantage of this upswing, for launching new products and cultivating our business relationships”, said Markus Sailer, CEO and President of Roland Germany GmbH. “The fair was very good for us and we are optimistic. We and many other manufacturers brought lots of new products with us. Therefore, I anticipate a small increase in the sector’s sales this year”, said Andy Rust, PR and Marketing Manager, Peavey Electronics Ltd. Around a third of Musikmesse exhibitors came from Germany.
The most important foreign exhibitor nations were the People’s Republic of China and the USA. They were followed by Italy, Great Britain, Spain, France and the Netherlands. A majority of 60 percent of the companies represented at Musikmesse said they were satisfied to highly satisfied with the visitor standard. 32 percent of visitors hold executive positions in their companies.
A large number of users also attended the fair – due in part to the extended hours of opening times for members of the public who have been able to enter the fair on the Friday afternoon since last year. The importance of Musikmesse for reaching musicians and consumers was emphasised by Frank Simmerlein, Director of Marketing, Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH, who said, “For us as a software company, an event such as Musikmesse is a great opportunity to interest users in our products and obtain direct feedback. After all, there would be no products and no companies that distribute them without consumers.” The areas of visitor interest were very wide. Particularly in demand this year were products from the recording and production segment (31 percent, multiple answers possible) and e-guitars and e-basses and amplifiers (31 percent), as well as keyboards, synthesizers and organs (26 percent), percussion instruments (25 percent) and sheet music (25 percent).
The top visitor nations after Germany in 2014 were the Netherlands, France, Italy, Great Britain, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, Sweden, Spain and Russia. As always, representatives of the trade and music fans were confronted by a host of innovations and future-oriented technologies. This year, it was apparent that mobile devices are playing an increasingly important role in the professional live and studio segments, e.g., as hardware controllers.
Moreover, smartphones and tablets are being used more and more as sound generators or creative music tools on the stage and elsewhere. The trend towards hybrid instruments, which combine the properties of acoustic and digital sound generators, also continues. In addition to hybrid drums and hybrid pianos, the amalgamation of both worlds of sound has now reached the wind-instrument segment, too. Thus, visitors were able to test the first hybrid recorder that can be played ‘classically acoustic’ or via a pickup for electric amplification.
Furthermore, increasingly unusual instrument designs are also making Musikmesse an experience in visual terms. For example, more manufacturers are commissioning designers from the tattoo and automotive paintwork fields to design instruments and accessories. A growing number of instrument makers are also using LED technology and, for example, literally making guitars appear in a completely new light. The significance of Musikmesse, especially for highly innovative start-ups, was underscored by Thomas Laurenson, CEO of NaonexT SAS, a company that made its first-ever presentation at this year’s fair: “Musikmesse is an outstanding showcase for advanced and completely new products – and this was also reflected by the high degree of interest shown by representatives of the press in our presentation. Distributors from the music production sector are also most likely to be convinced by a product if they can try it out for themselves. Hence, although this was our first time at the fair, we were able to generate lots of interest in our products.”
Despite the great innovativeness and the positive overall mood in the sector, the biggest challenge facing the trade and industry is the declining number of people taking up a musical instrument – one of the results of shorter, more concentrated times at school and university, as well as a lack of music teachers. Against this background, Musikmesse 2014 gave particular emphasis to musical education at an early age and promoting young talents. Music4Kids, an event that playfully introduces kindergarten and school children to musical instruments, many of them unusual and unique, registered an increase of no less than six percent in the number of registrations. Many of the little visitors who were given the chance to take their first musical steps under the supervision of music teachers came from well outside Frankfurt. Michael Bradke, the initiator of Music4Kids, summarised saying, “We registered not only the enthusiasm of children and teachers but also the thanks of the instrument manufacturers. For them, every young musician is a potential customer. Naturally, events designed to interest children in learning to play a musical instrument are very popular among exhibitors.”
For older youngsters, the John Lennon Educational Tour Bus – a mobile music and video studio – was a great attraction and an excellent opportunity to discover ultra-modern studio technology and obtain valuable know-how for their own creative ideas from experienced sound engineers. A special promotional highlight for young people was the finale of the SchoolJam music competition, which gave talented school bands the chance to get the feeling for a big stage in the ‘Festhalle’ on the Saturday. The winners were a rock trio – ‘Sonic. The Machine’ – from Friedrichshafen, who can now justly claim to be ‘Germany’s best school band’. Also in the ‘Festhalle’, the European School Music Award was presented for special teaching achievements and school and teaching projects that are especially worthy of support.
The other awards presented at Musikmesse 2014 included the Frankfurt Music Prize sponsored by the Federal Association of German Musical Instrument Manu¬facturers (Bundesverband der Deutschen Musikinstrumenten-Hersteller e. V. - BDMH). This year’s Music Prize went to saxophone legend Ernie Watts. The jury of experts honoured the American for his strikingly melodious saxophone style and his original tone language, with which he has already enriched several generations of musicians. Another prominent award winner was actor Heiner Lauterbach, who was singled out by the German Piano Federation (Bundesverband Klavier e. V. – BVK) as the ‘Piano Player of the Year’.
This year’s German Musical Instrument Award was presented to Frank Hartung Guitars for the Embrace Classic Nr. 13142 electric guitar and to Kühnl & Hoyer Musikinstrumentenfabrik GmbH for the ‘Bart von Lier 512’ tenor trombone. At a grand evening event, the who’s who of the sector’s trade journalists presented the Musikmesse International Press Awards (MIPA) for the best products in 40 categories from the fields of musical instruments and professional audio technology. In the case of the PPV Reader Awards, thousands of users – readers of ‘Soundcheck’, ‘Tastenwelt’, ‘Drumheads’ and ‘Guitar’ magazines – voted for their favourite products in the instrument and equipment sectors.
The PRG Live Entertainment Awards, which are given for special achievements in the German concert and show business, provided the glamorous framework for the opening of Musikmesse and Prolight + Sound. The extensive programme of events at this year’s Musikmesse also offered visitors the chance to see numerous stars live on stage, at workshops and at autograph sessions. They included Rod Gonzales (Die Ärzte), Adel Tawil, The BossHoss, Rudolf Schenker (Scorpions) and Jeff Beck. The 10th anniversary of the BigCityBeats club series, which was held after the Public Friday, underscored the event and entertainment character of the fair with a long party night for visitors and exhibitors.
Naturally, great attention was also paid to the subjects of training and specialist qualifications.The Musikbiz Lounge & Congress not only provided the setting for numerous seminars, workshops and lectures on subjects such as music marketing, copyright and music publishing. It also gave participants the chance to engage in some intensive networking activities. The next Musikmesse will be held in Frankfurt am Main from 15 to 18 April 2015.
