Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Categories
- 241.3K All Categories
- 22 >> Start Here <<
- 12 New Members
- 8 FAQs
- 86.6K Gear
- 39.5K Guitar
- 3.4K Acoustics
- 1.3K Bass
- 14.6K Amps
- 17.2K FX
- 265 Digital & Modelling
- 765 Other Instruments
- 8.2K Making & Modding
- 419 Gear Reviews
- 107 Guitar Reviews
- 73 Amp Reviews
- 118 FX Reviews
- 87 Other Reviews
- 748 Made in the UK
- 972 Theory
- 1.8K Technique
- 2.1K Live
- 3.2K Studio & Recording
- 2.1K Making Music
- 218 Events
- 15 Guitar Show 2018
- 829 Plug My Stuff
- 105K Classifieds
- 41K Guitars £
- 2.8K Acoustics £
- 138 LH Guitars £
- 895 Basses £
- 10.5K Parts £
- 18.3K Amps £
- 34K FX £
- 2.8K Studio & Rec £
- 6.1K Misc £
- 465 Personnel
- 54.7K Chat
- 36.5K Off Topic
- 1.1K Tributes
- 6.6K Music
In this Discussion
Become a Subscriber!
Subscribe to our Patreon, and get image uploads with no ads on the site!
THE GUITAR SHOW - comments time
Base theme by DesignModo & ported to Powered by Vanilla by Chris Ireland, modified by the "theFB" team.
Comments
No biggy but I wasn't told on entry. Was no mention at all during my 10 min duration in the queue
Also it was hard to see anything on the way in with everyone hustling to get to the main hall
I reckon you could do a plan for free - for most of the big IT shows they attract a 'guide sponsor' - one of the big companies who sponsor the plan - with their branding on it, they pay for it, and distribute it. Costs the organiser nothing, and your punters get a plan.
I wonder for some of the bigger names there how much they make not in sales on the day, but in future sales as people leave with an idea of what they want. IT shows sell absolutely nothing at all at the show - it's all about lead generation and future business. I'd be tempted to survey your show goers online afterwards if you can to get some figures as to how many had a potential purchase lined up as a result of the show. Real figures to give back to the big names to show them the value of the show to them.
Of course - I know it's about quality of life for you as well. I'm glad you do the show - I had a fab time there. I'd happily help out at future shows - volunteering of course.
I took the decision to push people upstairs early to get the new acoustic hall going, as it would have been empty for the first hour before people found it, I wanted to make sure it worked for them as it was a bit out of the way.
I can't expand, there is not a venue, I, you or the exhibitors are willing to pay for, the NEC would be perfect, but are you happy to pay £20+ to get in, £12 to park your car, £20 to eat, etc etc?
When I worked there, everyday onsite there was a queue of people (and I'm not making this up) who just wanted to shout at me all day long about how expensive everything was, it gets a bit wearing after a while, honestly 50 people a day telling you that you are a thief, a rip off merchant, a crook, it really sucks, and I didn't see a penny of that money and nor did my event.
Its not perfect, I know this, I wish the car park was better, I wish the venue was 20% bigger, but its not.
We had a few ideas on site, that with a bit of research may work, but you will have to leave it with me for now
It would have a real festival feel to it. Southampton Boat Show does something similar.
Once you have marquees and an outside space you can have outside catering type vans as well - maybe even an outside stage.
I know it sounds like we are trying to fix something that isn't broken - it was just at times it felt very busy in there and it was very claustrophobic & difficult to get to some stuff to try it..
The NEC has two ways of paying for parking
a) you charge everyone £12
b) you offer it free to visitors but ramp up the hall hire fee to cover it, this means the exhibition space costs more, so the exhibitors pay more to be there.
I knew Sam that used to run it, he was moaning one day that a company had pulled out (just the 1 company) that company's stand was more than the entire stand income I made from all of Music Live, the stand had cost £500,000!!!
Someone always pays, the venue makes sure of it, its sometimes not visitor, but they always get their money.
I've looked at the Custard Factory and to be honest, its really a bit shitty in places and flow would be terrible.
I've looked at every venue in the Birmingham area, TNBH, is the best on offer (even with its flaws)
The Ricoh would be perfect but now WASPS play one week and Cov City play the other there are about 5 weekends available in a (show) year and everyone wants them (you don't run shows in the summer, its financial suicide)
Multi room shows are horrible and flow is a nightmare, plus where do you put Yamaha (for example) electric guitar room, acoustic guitar room, amp room (with Line6), bass room, FX room,??
Its down to practicality that its all together, because you can repeat the Yamaha example over Headstock, Westside, Fender, they just don't have enough staff or want to pay for 4 stands
If not multi-room then zoning with the biggies like Yamaha in the middle? My biggest issue was with big crowds round the PMT/Fair Deal stands getting so busy that getting to the smaller ones around them for a good look was nigh on impossible. I honestly don't know how you deal with that sort of issue tho.
Have you had steady growth over the last few years? My worry would be that next year you get another 10-15% increase in footfall and it start to get uncomfortable in the show at the peak times..?
And, your show is a lot better organised than a lot that I go to.
Then again, the current show goers expect it in Feb now...
The amount of exhibitors that told me they weren't doing Future's Olympia shows because of the costs
The industry can't afford it
A couple of years ago, I worked out there were approx 1500 music stores in the UK (this figure will unfortunately be a lot less now)
So lets say 1200
Take out the chains because they only send the group buyers, so we are probably down to 1100
Take out the half that can't be arsed / don't have the time / mom and pop beginner stores
550 potential visitors, that as a company your rep should be seeing anyway
There is no real point to have a trade show in the UK
But I am planning a redraw to see if we can ease some problems
How did that go? I never see any of the show
My view was the show was better than last year, quiet times were much appreciated.
A number of stands had "mini shows" on, these add to the atmosphere but as I had two right next to me where one had really bright funk scratchy guitar played allot of the time, I probably had only 30% of Sunday where there was not a loud act playing next to me I did feel that maybe those activities should be controlled a bit better/limited to slots/more focused, Sunday in particular I had several guys try my amps, including Fretboard members, and then leave as it was just too much to compete without getting silly loud ourselves.
Overall though appreciate the effort that goes into pulling something like this off, so well done Jason.
I totally get the lack of alternate venue issue - and I take all your points about the size/scale of the industry and what the manufacturers will actually do..
A redraw may well help a lot. But you know your show a lot better than we do
In balance:
- Quiet times worked very well
- Great to see a broad range represented
- Brilliant to see so many people coming through the doors in the first place
- It's got that show 'buzz' that some shows never have
Most of the football stadiums have conference facilities. The Hawthorns are quite good and it is easily accessible by road ( two minutes from M5 junction 1, free car park on non match days although not huge) and not terrible by public transport (Hawthorns rail and metro stations five minutes walk) but I guess they all have that weekend issue and probably none really offer anything better than NBH
I'd echo the feedback of others, it was obviously very busy at peak times, i didnt think it was too busy to the point of it not working, (its a show, you want it to be busy) but if it grows again next year it might well be too busy to be bearable. The car park being full before the venue opens isn't good and is probably a sign that logistically the venue has been outgrown. But hell, we parked up soon enough and it was fine.
@Adamski and I kinda assumed cards weren't accepted on the door as we couldn't see a card machine anywhere on the front table. Not a biggie & should have just asked, I still tend to think in a 2005 mindset of "will they take card?" I forget its 2017 & everywhere does! :-)
Without harping on about the noise as I'm sure others will mention it, I just wanted to say it seemed to be only a few of the exhibitors flouting the rules, (to me it looked like mainly boutique amp guys) and they were doing it time after time after time. Total disregard for everyone else. Hows about a "3 strikes and we unplug your bloody amps" rule? Everyone else seemed to respect the noise rules though.
Aside from that it was great and i'll be back next year. Curry was awesome too!
The only other thing i'd change is that @Adamski and I arrived in Birmingham quite early on Friday, so in order to get out of our hotel for a few hours we went to the cinema see "The Great Wall" starring Matt Damon. Fucking terrible movie, so if you could stop Matt Damon making anymore films it'd be greatly appreciated.