The National Association of Music Merchants convention, or NAMM show for short, opened its doors for attendees and exhibitors today in Anaheim California. One of the largest professional conventions in the world, NAMM welcomes nearly 100,000 people from every aspect of the music industry each year. What process was used to get all those attendees and exhibitors registered and ready to rock? Read on to find out...
2013 NAMM show
NAMM is not open to the public but if its "star power" is of interest to you, real-time streams of photos are available from the popular photo sharing platforms like Instagram. In addition to the photo streams, the social media savvy attendees are making full use of the #NAMM hashtag.
But if you are a professional musician, or someone even remotely connected to the music industry, social media alone is no substitute for being there in-person.
Being there in-person means tickets, specifically, going through the online registration process and badge pick-up. The NAMM show has a reputation for a well run, efficient registration system. Attendees and exhibitors alike have touted the overall process as being one of the best.
Attending NAMM starts with a visit to their website because one must first go through an approval process, before registration can begin. An approval process is fairly standard procedure for the majority of industry trade shows, but because there are so many famous musicians at NAMM, this process is more strict than most.
NAMM JAM
Interestingly, there are hundreds of small ancillary events that use the NAMM brand name but are open to the public and do not require formal NAMM credentials. Most of the events are concerts and tickets are sold through traditional outlets like TicketMaster. One of the ancillary concerts is the popular "NAMM JAM" featuring the big names of that music genre. NAMM JAM is held at the legendary Whiskey-a-Go-Go on the Sunset strip, which is some 50 miles away from the convention center where NAMM is located.
If your convention or trade show is interested in licensing its brand to ancillary events the way NAMM has, you will have to decide if tickets for those external affairs will be part of your registration process or separate.
Your NAMM here
NAMM conference attendees and exhibitors can use their credentials for access to nearly all of the ancillary events, without the need to go through a separate ticketing process. Coordinating this interoperability between dozens of venues, over the course of several days, is not a trivial. The ticketing software used needs the ability to package multiple events into a single purchase, as well as compartmentalize the buyers by type (attendee, exhibitors, VIP, etc.). ThunderTix can do all of that and more.
ThunderTix offers industry trade shows the choice of making ancillary events native or external ticket purchases. We also have custom floor plan available to match venue your convention is being held at. The floor plans are shown during the exhibitor registration process helping to sell more space, faster.
Image source: Wikimedia Commons