The Stash Picks NAMM '09 Diary

NAMM always looks so glamorous from the outside, so I thought I’d give you a taste of what it is like for us running a booth.  This is Stash Picks, Inc.’s 6th NAMM, so we’ve got a few things handled.  Still, surprises always come up. Here’s how it went this year:

Wed.
Load in and set-up, where we bring all of our tables, banners, paperwork and guitar picks in to our booth, went well this year.  Working the booth for the weekend was Brent Trotter, Director of Operations and Jerry D’Paoli, lead guitarist from Dirty Black Halo (www.dirtyblackhalo.com) and me.  Just us guys this time around.

-That night, Brent, Jerry and I met Jerry’s wife and went out to dinner that night with the guys from Egnater (http://www.egnater.com) for dinner.  We went to Mari's Italian Restaurant.  It was good, but we were all thinking about the convention and how it was going to go.

-Lenard, Stash Picks, Inc. Driver, and Brent had to go up to the convention center mezzanine to switch a NAMM pass and we ran into Iris Fox, our ad rep from MMR Magazine.  Out of nowhere she got beers (score #1!) and said she would give STASH PICKS a free picture in the Musical Merchandise Retailer NAMM issue (score #2!).

-Checked into our favorite Motel 6.  They must have changed management because we didn't have to change rooms due to any urine smell this year.

Thurs.

I think that, because of the changes, I talked to distributors on the first day of the show for the first time.  Our new t-shirt design was getting excellent reviews – I’m glad because they are pretty hilarious, and stores liked the fishbowl idea (selling our picks individually rather than in bags).  Jerry got to do his favorite thing: play guitar using Stash Picks to demo our products.  Maybe he wasn’t in front of a huge audience, but he got paid to play, right?
-Ed Supple (http://www.eddiesupple.com/Main.htm), a studio guitar player, stopped by to say how much he loves the Double Pick.

-We went to dinner that night with Ola from Roleo and Jerry’s wife, Stephanie and had a fierce meal at Chris and Pits.  I wasn’t feeling tired yet, but I couldn’t afford to…I still had three more days to go!

Fri.
-Things at the booth got busy.  People were loving our fishbowl concept and we had a lot of interest in branding picks (see this (http://www.stashpicks.com/sales.php) if you don’t know what I’m talking about).  We ran out of buyer’s guides and so I had to run to Fed Ex to order more. They wouldn’t be ready until the next day.

-The distributor who’s from Mexico City came by and we negotiated a deal.  Stephanie translated for David since he doesn’t speak enough Spanish to talk business.  Also, two reps from Harris & Teller came by and loved the fishbowl idea, talked about buying a few.  (Still working on that deal.)

-Guitar World took us to dinner at Tortilla Joes in Disneyland.  I recommend the Margaritas. After that we partied at the Hilton and Marriott with the folks from Guitar World and Onari Accessories.  Excellent company, excellent time.

Sat.

This was a cool day – quality people came around, definitely made standing in one place for four days worth it.

-Flyers got done at Fed Ex, which was great since they were crazy-busy with NAMM orders.

-John Spiker (BASS – Filter (http://www.officialfilter.com/), Tenacious D (http://www.tenaciousd.com/)) and John Konesky (GUITAR – Tenacious D) came by to say hello Brent.  (John and Brent have been friends since birth.  He won his first Grammy in 2007 for Steve Earle’s Washington Square Serenade in the Best Folk Album Category.)

-GuitarFixation.com came by the booth and Brent talked them into writing a review on our picks.  You can read it here: http://www.guitarfixation.com/reviews/more/stash_picks

-The CEO of Eastwood Guitars, Mark Robinson, was stoked about our custom OEM picks and talked about placing an order for his company.

-Electra Guitars let Stash Picks borrow one of their brand new prototype ’09 guitars for him to play at our booth for demos.  Again, a good day to be a guitar player at the Stash Picks booth.

-I was getting tired but still had a blast with Ron Martino of Yamaha that night: we had dinner at The Cheesecake Factory and talked about the state of the music industry until 1:30 a.m.

Sun:
-One more day to go.

-A Taiwan distributor was very interested in our picks but because of the country’s feuding political parties and the colors associated with such parties (RED & YELLOW) he wanted to order all of our picks in BLACK.

-Ed Supple came by again for more Double Picks.  Hey! As long as he’s handing them out, he can have as many as he likes!

-Some Dunlop employees stopped by and were in awe over the Double Pick and took some along. 

-A few designers of Guitar Hero video game came around to talk about how we can work together.  They got some Double picks to try out on the controller for the game. 

-TJ Milian (Sam Ash Regional District Manager, West Coast) stopped by to say hi.

-End of the day, I was ready to pack up and go.  NAMM changed a bunch of rules (for security), which caused a bunch of disruptions during load out…and we don’t have that much stuff.  Still, made the day go longer.

-Brent, Lenard and I ate our traditional In & Out on the way home from the show and the 2009 Winter NAMM Show is officially over.