Musikmesse 2011 – Strong Attendance, Positive Attitudes

This year’s conference, which ran from April 6 to 9 in unusually nice weather, represented somewhat of a turnaround since the beginning of the financial crisis that has rocked the world during the past several years. Encompassing multiple buildings and halls, the Messe once again cleared the 1,500 mark in terms of the number of exhibitors, and the Prolight & Sound reaches a record level of 873 booths. Fair management reported 77,609 visitors to the Musikmesse versus approximately 79,000 last year, a reduction of 1.7 percent, but the overall attendance to the combined Musikmesse and Prolight & Sound increased to 110,000 versus 108,425 last year.

According to Detlef Braun, managing director of Messe Frankfurt, “The large number of exhibitors from 50 countries and the six percent growth in the number of companies representing the Germany Musical instrument industry constitute impressive evidence of the consistency and resistance of the Musikmesse and its exhibitors. This has consolidated the position of Musikmesse as the leading international trade fair for this sector.” Additionally NAMM and Messe Frankfurt announced a co-operation on joint shows in Moscow, which will run at the Moscow exhibition centre from May 16th to 19th, 2012.

Harvey Levy of Levy’s Leathers commented that, though many distributors had already placed their orders at NAMM, from the standpoint of seeing many worldwide distributors, this is a very good show. American Way’s John Musselman suggested a similar theme, in that they, “saw customers from over 25 countries around the world, including Thailand, Turkey, Slovenia, Japan, and of course Europe, so it is important for their company to be represented at this show.” Several US companies that were present in previous years, however, were absent, although the ones that did exhibit indicated strong interest from international buyers.

Germany featured by far the largest number of exhibitors at the Musikmesse, with a total of 577 companies represented, a six percent increase from last year. After that, the top ten exhibiting countries at this year’s fair included 147 from China, 139 from the USA, 106 from Italy, 68 from the UK, 62 from Spain, 42 from France, 40 from Switzerland, 34 from Taiwan, and 33 from South Korea.

Hal Leonard Corp. held a press conference during the show to announce their deal to provide printed music distribution and hire (rental) rights fulfillment for key classical catalogues for Universal Music Publishing, which will commence on July 1, 2011.