313. NAMM CEO & President John Mlynczak

It’s NAMM Show season, with Sean and Andy kicking it off with a bang in Episode 313 by getting the scoop on everything NAMM (National Association of Music Merchants) from CEO and president John Mlynczak. He provides a crash course on NAMM, what he’s looking forward to at the show in Anaheim this year, the NAMM Foundation educational program, and more. This episode is sponsored by Allen & Heath and RCF.

Prior to NAMM, John served as president of Music Education & Technology at Hal Leonard, where he oversaw worldwide education market strategy. He also managed Noteflight, Essential Elements Interactive and Essential Elements Music Class, and collaborated on all music education technology related initiatives for Hal Leonard. Previously, he was managing director of Noteflight, and he’s also the immediate past-president of the Technology Institute of Music Educators (TI:ME).

John has taught online graduate courses at VanderCook College, served as advocacy chair of the Massachusetts Music Educator’s Association, served on the NAMM SupportMusic Coalition, and on the NAfME Advocacy Leadership Force. He is a Google Level 2 Certified Educator and a frequent clinician on education technology and music advocacy.

​Before his career at Hal Leonard, John served as director of Education at PreSonus, where he developed curriculum, products, and marketing strategies for music education technology. ​In addition, he taught general music, band, choir, marching band, and music technology, starting the first music technology course in Louisiana and writing the state curriculum for an official approved course. From 2011 to 2013, He served as chairman of the Creative Arts Assessment Committee in Louisiana, and provided model assessment for the creative arts.

On top of all that, John has enjoyed a long career of performing as a solo artist and in symphony orchestras, pit orchestras, and Top 40 bands.

Episode Links:
NAMM
NAMM Show
NAMM Foundation
John Mlynczak Online
Episode 313 Transcript

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Transcript

Episode 313 - John Mlynczak, CEO/President of NAMM

Note: This is an automatically generated transcript, so there might be mistakes--if you have any notes or feedback on it, please send them to us at signal2noise@prosoundweb.com so we can improve the transcripts for those who use them!

Voiceover: You’re listening to Signal to Noise, part of the ProSoundWeb podcast network, proudly brought to you this week by the following sponsors:

Allen & Heath, whose new dLive RackUltra FX upgrade levels up your console with 8 next-generation FX racks – putting powerful tools like vocal tuning, harmonizing, and amp simulation right at your fingertips. Learn more at allen-heath.com

RCF and TT+ AUDIO.... Delivering premium audio solutions designed for tour sound and music professionals for over 75 years.  Visit RCF at RCF-USA.com for the latest news and product information.

Music: “Break Free” by Mike Green

[00:00:58] Andy Leviss: Hey, welcome to another episode of Signal to Noise. I'm your host, Andy Leviss. And Sean's gonna be disappointed in me 'cause I had an opening blank to my blank joke and then I realized I'd used that one already. Now I'm just totally flat out so you get a free pass. This, I was gonna say like the the, I was gonna do like the AES to my NAMM or like the NAMM to my InfoComm, and I'm like, wait, no, I think I did that at one of those conferences last year.

[00:01:24] Sean Walker: No man.

[00:01:26] Andy Leviss: He's the cool, the cool minor

[00:01:27] Sean Walker: 'cause I'm just here shaking my head at you, bro.

[00:01:29] Andy Leviss: You're here shaking my head. Our, our guest who will introduce in a minute is, is trying to figure out how to take that and if he should be offended or not.

[00:01:36] Sean Walker: bro, your dad-a-base is tired and old. You gotta get your dad-a-base

[00:01:39] John Mlynczak: It's, it's, you're, the music to my merchant is the, is the correct one Andy? Like

[00:01:44] Andy Leviss: we go. That works.

[00:01:44] John Mlynczak: putting that out there.

[00:01:46] Andy Leviss: That works. So, uh, we are, it is January. We are rapidly heading towards, uh, NAMM season for those who observe. And so we figured who better to kick that off and lead in, lead in than John Mlynczak the CEO and President. Is that you, you have both titles of, of NAMM. Uh, so Hey John, welcome.

[00:02:09] John Mlynczak: Great to be here. It is, it is ary as we like to say. I like for those you observe,

[00:02:15] Sean Walker: Oh, I

[00:02:15] John Mlynczak: and heim.

[00:02:17] Sean Walker: Yeah. Right. All right.

[00:02:17] John Mlynczak: Uh, NAMM is another one we like to use a lot. Uh, we're gonna have a great show, NAMM. Uh, so that's our internal, you know, rally cry.

[00:02:28] Sean Walker: Oh my God. I've sent a text later after like 200,000

[00:02:30] Andy Leviss: we're, we're,

[00:02:31] Sean Walker: My, my feet hurt NAMM it.

[00:02:35] John Mlynczak: If I do anything for this industry, I'm gonna normalize NAMM it as a, as a, as a all inclusive, fun word to use to express our love and joy at all at the same time.

[00:02:43] Sean Walker: I'm in it. I'm in it to

[00:02:45] Andy Leviss: Yeah, I just, I'm crossing fingers. 'cause last year I was like down to day and a half in with, of course Mthr, but.

[00:02:52] John Mlynczak: Yep. Absolutely.

[00:02:53] Andy Leviss: So, so hoping, 'cause this year I'm actually, this year I'm not just there for the podcast. I'm also there, uh, repping Yamaha. Uh, so folks, if you come by the Yamaha booth, please say hi. I'll be one of the two tech support engineers there to answer all the hard questions.

[00:03:08] Sean Walker: I will bring coffee and snacks for you so you don't cry and

[00:03:10] Andy Leviss: Yeah. Appreciate it. Appreciate it. But uh, yeah, so we had, we'd been talk, I mean, God, we've been talking about like trying to get you on John since like NA year ago. So I'm glad we finally made it happen.

[00:03:24] John Mlynczak: Yeah, I'm excited. I'm excited to talk about whatever you want to go. Ask me the hard questions. Let's, let's get into something fun here.

[00:03:30] Andy Leviss: Yeah. Well, I mean, do you wanna give for folks who don't, I mean, we always give a little bit of like our half-ass crash course on what exactly NAMM is and how it applies to folks in like the live audio industry. But since we have somebody who can speak a little more expertly to it, do you wanna give, give listeners who, who may not know what the heck we're talking about and we're wondering why we're going to Asia in January that No, that's not the, it's NAMM, not NAMM.

Yeah, ex explain a little

[00:03:54] John Mlynczak: about that too. Yeah, I'd love to. I'd love to get that up down because, and also it's, it's definitely expanded. Like of course, NAMM. This year we're celebrating 125 years as an association. Um, and a lot has evolved over the years, but the, so as NAMM as an association is our job as a nonprofit association is to serve and strengthen every company in the world who makes manufacturers sells, distributes musical products.

That's it. And that, that definition of music product, that, that is everything from a trumpet or a didgeridoo or a guitar strap, or a pedal or a front of house console, lighting console, you know, like powered speakers in a club, massive speakers flying at a stadium, uh, and everything in between. Uh, that's our, that's our sole mission.

And so the NAMM Show brings together that entire world, uh, in one place in Anaheim or Anaheim, as I like to say, in January. It's the time where the industry comes together and it's really a designed to like kick off the industry and create strength and unity around all musical products. And I know for a long time, you know, NAMM is very, has, you know, was very MI focused.

It started as pianos in 1901. Because, you know, the radio hadn't come out yet. Then the radio, the talking machine came out and that was gonna kill music. Then the radio came out and that was gonna kill music. And then the television, and then internet. We've seen all these iterations, but as, as the industry expands, as live music, as touring, as you know, electronic instruments, all of these things have come about in the past 125 years.

We continue to grow. So one of the things I really want to get into. Early is that, you know, we, when we think of membership, we think of every company, uh, in the ecosystem. When you talk about the live, sound and pro audio ecosystem, you know, yes, it's the companies who are making the big speakers, the consoles, all of that.

But we also look at education. There's training, there's Dante training, there's console training. We look at, um, producers, engineers, front of house, all of that as key audiences at the NAMM Show. We also have really opened up our membership to make sure that everyone renting gear. I mean, this year there's the Backline Bash that's gonna get together.

All the backline community companies are gonna have a big Bash at the NAMM show. Um, so that's a new event for us. We have, you know, we're looking at like, making sure rental houses and have visited Claire Global and Lititz and Nashville and everything. So we're really embracing this community as a core part of NAMMs audience because it's, it is live music right now.

[00:06:23] Andy Leviss: So, and just 'cause we kind of glossed over it, just what does NAMM stand for for, for the

[00:06:27] John Mlynczak: Yeah, so National Association of Music Merchants,

[00:06:32] Andy Leviss: So, and ha has it always been merchants or has that changed? Because I feel like, I always thought it was manufacturers and then what I went last year, I was like, oh, it's merchants. I, I, I must have misunderstood.

[00:06:41] John Mlynczak: always been merchants, but people, they, some people think it's music makers, some people think it's music manufacturers. Um, I'm trying to get people to think it's Linza Mayhem, but they haven't, they haven't put that in yet. Um. But, uh, maybe one day, NAMM it.

[00:06:55] Sean Walker: it. That's how it is from now on. Dam it.

[00:06:57] John Mlynczak: Uh, but, uh, it's been music, but in fact, it was founded in 1901 as the National Association of Piano Dealers of America.

Nap nata. Um, and then by 1919, because the talking machine came out and the piano dealers are like, well, do we sell talking machines? Which are, you know, record players, the old Victrola crank it up kinda thing. Um, you know, the, the ad with the dog and the big cone, all that, that's they, that it changed to music merchants in 1919 and in fact, more history.

It did. NAMM did not open up to manufacturer members until the 1990s. So now we're an association of manufacturers, distributors, and retailers. We were actually a retail only association up until the 1990s. So again, as as the world evolves, so does NAMM.

[00:07:47] Sean Walker: Dude, that's cool.

[00:07:50] Andy Leviss: Yeah.

[00:07:50] Sean Walker: was like. Specifically for, you know, current. I can only think about like the Sweetwaters guitar Centers, b and h photos of the world, the retailer, the bigger retailers that we're selling, all that stuff. That's who it was targeted for, for a long time. And now the manufacturers can show up in all kinds of reps and they even let jokers like us in.

[00:08:08] John Mlynczak: Exactly. Even jokers like you. Well, I think, you know, for the trade show, I mean as, as a retail association, the trade show, the manufacturers always wanted to come see the retailers. Like that was, that's trade show 1 0 1. Like that was why, you know, it was, it was just a retail association, but the retail association had the manufacturers, you know, exhibiting.

That was, that was the whole deal. As, as time evolved, and I think the nineties, you know, something else happened in the nineties, obviously the internet, uh, you know, exploded. The catalog business had already exploded the way people, uh, consumers had more choice about where they buy and what they get. And so this idea of like manufacturer selling direct to consumer or advertising direct consumer, this started with the, the catalogs and the 800 number long before it started with the internet.

But that evolution was happening and I think, and I wasn't there at the time, but as I read through history, it made sense to say we need to be an association that represents everyone. 'cause we're all in it for one reason, to make more music makers. And that's a really big piece of what we do. So yeah, let's get the manufacturers in.

Manufacturers. But on the board, our board actually is 12 manufacturers, 12 retailers. And I think it's one of the strengths of NAMM, you know, to be some, a lot of associations are the retail side and the manufacturer side. One or the other? We're both. And so at our board meetings, at our members of meetings and our, all of our talks we're, we have to think about how, you know, we help manufacturers selling products, we help retailers selling products, and we do a lot to strengthen all those relationships.

So they don't always agree, but they always agree that, um, thinking about the greater good of the industry is most important.

[00:09:42] Sean Walker: If they could always agree, they all need to sell more stuff, they could always

[00:09:45] John Mlynczak: Well, that's a thing. Well, and you know, you say that, Sean. That's exactly it. And it's funny, I've been on board meetings. You have these conversations. Where we always agree is like, you know what? If more people are buying musical products than any other problem, we think we have. Tariffs, supply chain chip factories burning down, and we can't get chips to make interfaces for a year.

All these crazy things that happen in our industry, all these things, none of that matters as long as people are out there making music and desiring to, to play. And we just saw that, I mean, it was a tariff eyeing last year. Uh, I get it. Um, in fact, I, a little birdie told me we might actually get a Supreme Court decision this morning, so it could break on this.

Podcast. We'll see. I haven't heard it yet. Uh, but nonetheless, we had a really strong Q4 people bought musical products, inflation, fear of recession, everything else. People still bought musical products, and that's a good thing. And so we just, that's where we focus all the time.

[00:10:44] Sean Walker: When you sell to the obsessed. The rest of it kind of goes by the wayside, right?

[00:10:48] John Mlynczak: you can't have enough guitars. I mean, I'm telling you, you can never have enough. You know, you need multiple preamps. You just never know when you need a different type of preamp for something else.

[00:10:58] Sean Walker: a hundred percent. I don't even play guitar and I own multiple guitars. I got a Les Paul, I got a Strat. They're all hot rotted and dialed in. I send 'em to the luthier. Every time somebody comes to the studio and plays something, they're like, this thing's killer. I'm like, I know. 'cause you suck. So play the good one.

I don't even play guitar. Of course, you need multiples.

[00:11:16] John Mlynczak: absolutely. Buy more

[00:11:18] Sean Walker: can't even imagine being a guitar player. Dude. I'd be like drowning in guitars.

[00:11:24] John Mlynczak: Which

[00:11:25] Andy Leviss: Sean's now accepting applications for a guitar tech position.

[00:11:28] Sean Walker: Yeah, right. Totally.

[00:11:30] John Mlynczak: Hey, repair techs are, are definitely a need. Yeah, no, it's, it's cool. Now, I'll tell you what's interesting this year, uh, you think about what, 'cause this is the time where we start to see all the new product announcements. Like we get, you know, we have our electronic press kit that'll drop Wednesday of the show.

So I, you know, we already see all the embargoed releases. I'll tell you this year. We have double over double the product announcements that we had last year and, uh. It's, it's really exciting. I think a lot of it is like just, you know, a lot of people are just realizing that the, the power of the NAMM show and the power of the reach of influencers and the expansion of our global media is a really good time to launch products.

Even if you might have launched it in the past three months, or you plan to launch it in the next three months. Like you can get it out using our platform. But I think the other thing that's happened this year is it's been such a like. You know, I guess I'll say terrifying or tumultuous year for a lot of companies that like didn't their, their 2025 business plan was not figure out where I'm getting my products or components at what price and recalculate my forecast eight times, uh, and then pause and not pause and all this other stuff and.

You know, so they had to go on the defensive for a long time, but you know, that all kind of quieted down. So now companies are like really anxious to get back on the offense, to get their product announcements out, you know, and a lot of that got delayed over the summer. So it is like the energy about like, let's just start a new year and launch some cool stuff is, it's really, really hot right now.

A lot of cool stuff coming out.

[00:12:57] Sean Walker: I'm stoked to see most of those. That's gonna be great.

[00:13:00] Andy Leviss: And that's cool to hear. 'cause I know like, uh, like right before New Year's on our, our Facebook group, one of the listeners was saying that like he hadn't seen like much, you know, big being announced this year for n at least on the pro audio side. I was wondering if it was more about like a workflow and evolution year, but it sounds like it may just be like, no, people are actually just being better about keeping it tight to their chest to make the big reveal, you know, add or closer to the show.

[00:13:25] John Mlynczak: Yeah, the type of the chest thing is, is very, in fact, we keep having to like really, really, really increase security on Wednesday, like that setup day. 'cause a lot of people will try to like, you know, like you media people try to like bum a badge from a friend of a manufacturer to try to get a red badge to sneak in and see something and break it early.

And we're just like, no, you can't do that. We're gonna, like, a lot of people wanna like have that big release on Wednesday. And I'll be honest, you know, a lot of companies are just, um, are just behind. It's been a hard year, so like, it's like catching up, getting through Q4 after a summer of like ups and downs.

They're just getting stuff out now and they're back to it. So we're seeing there'll be big announcements. A lot of ai, a lot of AI stuff, and I think we're starting to see too, I've, I've, I've, I've looked through the product announcement so far and I won't get a lot more next week. I think we're starting to see where AI is gonna have longevity.

You know, when you get a new tool, you sort of like use it too much. It's like a new plugin. Then you put that, put it on everything. What does m and m say? You put on everything. Like all you do with autotune. Yeah. So,

[00:14:27] Sean Walker: dude.

[00:14:28] Andy Leviss: It's

[00:14:28] John Mlynczak: you realize like, okay, not everything needs that. I.

[00:14:31] Sean Walker: figure out where it works and where it shines and where it falls on its face, and you kind of like make your own opinions about it and figure out where you can use that tool best.

[00:14:38] John Mlynczak: Exactly that. I, I, that's the theme of what we're gonna see with like, where AI makes sense. And we're gonna see the first iterations of products that are like, hey companies, um, you know, won't say who, but we have several companies kind of introducing their, their AI identity. So if it's like a branded, this is our AI thing, you know, NAMM here, uh, that's gonna be integrated across our products so our products can start to learn, listen, adapt.

It'd be very interesting where AI takes. The audio world particularly.

[00:15:08] Sean Walker: Totally there, there are definitely, like, there are definitely some things that it can help with and make life easier and make it a little more like automatic and automated. And then there's some things where you're like, ah, I still need a person for that. You know what I mean? Like, uh, it could probably help a ton with, I, I bet it could help a ton with wireless coordination if it was just let to go with like, run this thing.

Here's the thing, here's the results. Do the thing. Right. But to, like, it's not gonna fly the speakers in the ballroom or the stadium for you, you know what I mean? Or plug in the cables or whatever. Right. Not

[00:15:37] John Mlynczak: no, but it can, it can, it could take a lot of data from like wireless interference and look at signals and it could, it could think about, it could think quickly. I mean, I've heard all kind, I mean. You know, I, I was, you know, y'all probably know Ray Williams and, uh, he talks a lot about like digital audio workstations and music exchange.

You know, we did, we actually did a session in China on this. You know, the, the digital audio workstation is, you know, in, in, in the years ahead will be very different. And one of the things we're seeing with ai, you know, think about a, you know, a track, a stem, a track, you know, traditionally is, is pretty isolated.

It's pretty mindless track two. Like lead guitar, whatever that, that, that, that audio stem doesn't know, doesn't have any knowledge of anything else around it. So it, someone has to sit down and, you know, use automation and bring it out, bring it in. You put plugin, you know, tune to figure out that track, and then also balance that track against everything else.

Imagine if those tracks started having a brain, imagine if the lead guitar track actually could listen to the vocal track and adjust as needed. Um. Imagine that those tracks started thinking more about having more logic about what else is going on outside of them and how that affects the ability to mix.

Um, and then imagine we could do that on the fly. The thing about AI is that, you know, people don't talk enough about like the amount of processing. We're starting to hear it, and like the not of energy consumption. AI is having, it's, it's really massive, you know, cooling these massive servers. But AI is forcing computer companies to speed up.

And one thing we'll see too, and you know, Qualcomm was at the NA show last year introducing things like this, and I know we'll see some things outta CS this week. The amount of computing processing we have is really impressive right now. So what AI's gonna do is make people say, oh, if I could process faster, imagine things we used to have to do and wait, you know, go get a cup of coffee.

Wait for this to render one minute, two minutes. What if that could happen in real time?

[00:17:35] Sean Walker: Totally. So now your pro tools are logic or whatever. Session can mix itself and export itself and have some kind of like, Hey man, this is what rock music sounds like now, or this is what hip hop or EDM sounds like now and it auto balances and auto gets out of its way and we're just working ourselves outta a job sick.

We're all gonna be stage hands, guys.

[00:17:52] John Mlynczak: So you mentioned someone's gotta fly the speakers. No, I think too, you know, it's funny though. I've, I've, yeah. I mean, yeah. So if you're a horse whip salesman in 1920, you're probably like gonna be out of a job soon. I get it. If

[00:18:04] Sean Walker: I'm all of a sudden a gas station person, you know what I'm saying?

[00:18:07] John Mlynczak: yeah, you're gonna get a job at a gas station. That's a really good analogy.

You know, if you're an ice block delivery man, you might actually be a refrigerator delivery man the next year. So yeah, like jobs change. I get that. I do think though, you look at historically, like creatively, people are, I, I think we're, we're far more creative beans and every time a piece of technology can free us up from not having to spend like two days to like master something.

To spending like two hours of like prompting a plugin to kinda get it to where you want it. Imagine how much more time we have to be creative. That's what it unlocks.

[00:18:44] Sean Walker: Or to actually run your business if you're a recording studio, so that you can actually be a viable business model rather than just spending all your time. Behind the console and never getting back to your clients that are leaving for another place.

[00:18:55] John Mlynczak: That is that too. So I think, I think we'll be fine.

[00:18:59] Andy Leviss: yeah, and I mean it's also compelling I think, on the live side 'cause as, as tools like this become faster to use and just faster to process, it opens up a lot more tools to us to use live. That used to be stuff you could only use in the studio just 'cause it took so much time to like. Loop through and figure out and dial things in and or just as latency comes down as processing power becomes more powerful.

I mean, that's how I end up with like, uh, like, you know, the, all anybody's talking about the last few months in like the live world is like this, uh, alpha lavs d feedback plugin.

[00:19:32] John Mlynczak: Feedback. I was gonna say, it's all, look, the, the days of like a human sitting there and trying to watch frequencies building up and, and notching out feedback. Come on. Like that technology automates the automatable like. Feedback should never happen in a world of AI because that is, that is something very logical and consistent that, that a, that a AI could listen for, watch, hear, and pick up and cut out very quickly, which is great.

'cause you know what, if a human doesn't have to worry about feedback, they can actually, you know, get the kick drum to sound right.

[00:20:04] Sean Walker: Totally, totally. So Andy, now that that's a whole thing, when does Yamaha come out with the Ravage D-S-P-R-X-E-X-E-X-E-X-A-I-A-I-E-X to do all that for us?

[00:20:15] Andy Leviss: I cannot comment on any potential future releases.

[00:20:19] John Mlynczak: So I have a joke. I have a joke, y'all. I I'm gonna get in so much trouble on this one. I, you know, I love the tech awards I, the NAMM Tech awards. It's, it's, I, I sit there, I love it because I love seeing like the product managers sit there and see their innovation thrive. So I'll just put this like, this is all with love.

Um, this is my Southern, with all due respect, but I sit there

[00:20:42] Andy Leviss: We're about to bless somebody's heart. Okay.

[00:20:44] John Mlynczak: I see all, yeah, we're gonna bless 'em hard. I bless their hearts. They're so happy. But, you know, with love, I see all this and I go, I was like, you know what, I, I think I know how product managers and companies NAMM audio gear. They're sitting in traffic on the way to work.

They look at the license plate in front of them, and the street sign at the next, the x. It's exactly what it's, I'm telling you, they're in the car. It's the license plate plus the street sign. That's the NAMM of the product. Don't even at me on this.

[00:21:21] Sean Walker: Oh my God, I love it. That's perfect and totally, uh, totally true. That has to be, that's the only way. That's it. It's solved, it's done. It's it's law now.

[00:21:29] John Mlynczak: like a word too, like

[00:21:31] Sean Walker: Totally. Oh my God, that's awesome. That just like, the thing is so important. It's so, it does all this tech stuff and how, what do I NAMM it? I can't be creative. I did all the tech stuff and how am I gonna do it? It's gonna be this.

[00:21:44] John Mlynczak: Yeah. Nine Z, 7 53

[00:21:48] Sean Walker: Peach tree. Yeah,

[00:21:50] John Mlynczak: Street, Cameron Circle, whatever it is.

[00:21:55] Sean Walker: Oh my God, totally. That's freaking funny, dude.

[00:22:00] Andy Leviss: All

[00:22:00] Sean Walker: Oh man. What are some of your, what are some of your like. Highlights of the NAMM Show. After doing that for a, for several years or for a while now, what are some of the things where you're like, dude, I love this about this job and this gig every year, and I look forward to it, even though it may be stressful and exhausting and wanna bash your head against the desk sometimes, but you're just like, this is what fuels me to do this.

[00:22:22] John Mlynczak: Oh man. You know what you, you just described perfectly, Sean, is that it? It's literally like, it's, it's January when we come in January. Monday after New Year's, the whole industry is thinking about NAMM and there's, you kinda realize like, wow, everyone in this industry is, is, is now focused on one thing, this NAMM show.

And of course we as a team been spending, you know, a year, actually 18 months to like get ready for this day. And yes, we're like back in July, in August and September. Get your badges, get your hotels, get your, you know, exhibitor kids, all this stuff. But yeah, people wake up and they just flood and the, the flood of like phone calls and emails and text messages and LinkedIn and hitting me up everywhere.

I mean, I, it's like nonstop, but, and yeah, some, it's, it's a lot. But what's cool is you realize the weight and the power of like what you do. Like these companies are like investing. Their year on what they're gonna show and do, and they wanna make the most out of it. So yeah, they're gonna hit us up and say, Hey, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, and be like, it'd really great if you'd ask us in like August.

'cause we really could have pulled off a lot more. But, you know, our team is always like a yes, we'll try to make it work. Um, you know, you know 60 people that work at NAMM and, um, we could have 120 and they'd still be bashing your heads in the wall. But I'll tell you, it's um. It's a cool energy and I'll tell you, if you could come to the office, I told the team this yesterday.

The thing I'm most proud of is if you walk around, 'cause it is like nonstop chaos right now. Every, every employee here is just like, you know, but the, just the calm focus. Like we're laughing, we're in stopping in the, the offline hall just kinda like chatting up something and there's like a comradery that kind of happens where like we all need each other, support each other.

Uh, lot of chocolates in the office. I was in the grocery store. I was like, oh, Valentine's Day's already out. Me buy up some stuff and throw it in the office, you know?

[00:24:19] Sean Walker: There you go.

[00:24:19] John Mlynczak: but I'll tell you like it's a cool time. 'cause our whole industry is thinking about one thing, which is like the success in music products.

It, it, I don't think it ever gets old. You just feel it every day.

[00:24:29] Sean Walker: That's awesome. So you have 59 people right now looking at you going, you took an hour to do a podcast right now. What is wrong with you? And you're like, I know, man. I'm sorry dude. I'll, I'll help out. I'll, I'll work over lunch.

[00:24:39] John Mlynczak: But obviously, but that, that's why, that's why I talk about how great they are. 'cause I'm, I'm actually, you know, uh, exactly.

[00:24:45] Sean Walker: Totally dude.

[00:24:47] John Mlynczak: No, it's a cool energy.

[00:24:48] Sean Walker: that's gotta be really cool. 'cause I mean, just live events is like what, 450 ish billion a year going through live events, plus who knows how much this manufacturers and stuff like that. So you're like one of the hubs of creating that much. Cash flow for people and companies and that kind of stuff.

And it's, it's kind of all on your shoulders for January right now. No pressure, uh, that it's no wonder people are intense and like, could we do this? Could we do that? Could we do this? 'cause it's millions or hundreds of millions or billions of dollars in the line for a lot of these people. You know what I mean?

That's, that's a big responsibility, man. That's pretty cool. And to know that you, you know, execute well every year and everybody has a good time. And you know, with that many people, you can't please everybody. Let's be honest, we've all been. Customer service and events long enough that there's, there's one or two Karens running around, but by, in the most part, everybody's talking positively about the NAMM show.

Everybody's stoked to go. We're all excited every year when it shows up and, you know, trying to figure out how to not walk 400 blocks from the hotel to the, to the show itself. But like, it's a huge deal. Man. That's awesome. It's

[00:25:47] John Mlynczak: Yeah.

[00:25:48] Sean Walker: it's gotta feel great to be a part of that and lead that charge.

[00:25:50] John Mlynczak: The pre NAMM show thing. Get your steps in, get your cardio in. If you're not doing long walks or runs or, or getting on the elliptical. If you're not doing your cardio and you're gonna show up to the NAMM show and walk five miles in one day and then Huff, come on. It's a, it's a physical event. I, I do, I, I literally, I, I run 12 miles a weekend.

[00:26:06] Sean Walker: That's.

[00:26:07] John Mlynczak: I, I go out there 'cause it's actually, I just have to condition my body. I mean, I, I run in general once or twice a week, but before the na show, like starting December, I'm like ready for the steps. 'cause I have to do it in dress shoes all day in a suit. So that's a,

[00:26:20] Sean Walker: Dude,

[00:26:20] John Mlynczak: area

[00:26:21] Sean Walker: dude, I, I made a major faux pa in my first year at NAMM, years and years and decades ago. At this point, it's just how old I am. I was singing for rock band, so I showed up thinking like I wanted to look like a rock star. And so me and my Chuck Taylors. Did 25,000 zillion miles at the damn show and the end, end of the first day, I was like, I'm gonna the store and getting some Nikes.

This sucks, dude. It was brutal, dude. Like,

[00:26:42] John Mlynczak: New skin buddy. New skin blister bandaid. It's like, I'm like excited about blister pads years old now. Like it's like freaking, we talk about. Every day I alternate shoes. If you look at me, I'll be like, I wear this suit on one day. Black shoes, brown shoes black. And you gotta just, you gotta break it up, man.

It's a, it's a, it's a rush. But, you know, back to the people. I will share what one thing we've been doing under the hood. You know, everyone's, every business is, you know, ai, technology, all this stuff we have, it's, it's interesting like, so your community. You take live events, you have 70, 70 some thousand people at the NAMM show.

We'll see where it lands this year. You know, you have live events. That community, you might have a company, let's take like an EL acoustics or a d and b or something, you know, that com, that speaker company, there's a, or Yamaha of course, obviously, you know that those companies for that division, for that Yamaha Pro division, who do they wanna see?

They wanna see the rental houses, they wanna see front of house engineers. They might wanna see some venues, right? You think about like, and then you take like a bow maker. Who do they wanna see? Then you take like a, a school music, uh, like a a, a student trumpet manufacturer. They wanna see school music, dude.

They wanna see music educators. Uh, you take like a, you know, guitar brand. They wanna see like artists, they wanna see influencers. They wanna see obviously their, and of course they're dealers. They're distributors, but they have a completely different dealer. They wanna see the guitar shop, like guitar.

There's probably like a hundred. Real God honest, us and guitar dealers out there in the country that are independent, that are like really, really doing 90% of the independent business. They wanna see those people, international distributors that are carrying every, the, the point is that when we look at the NAMM show, we don't have 70,000 people.

We have, we, we, we actually think of it as 70. 1000 person audiences. And so we actually, when you register this year and you go on NAMM.org and you create a profile and we're gonna say, Hey, are you so and so, what's your title? What's your primary role in the industry? Do you work for a company? You're people are seeing all this new questions and it looks new, and like, why does, why do I have to log into this NAMM dashboard and answer this question and then go get my badge?

It's, we, we redesigned the whole thing because it's our obligation. And our value to the industry to know exactly who's at the show. So this

[00:29:07] Sean Walker: all the right people together.

[00:29:09] John Mlynczak: exactly, we have to dial it in. So when someone says, I had the best show, we say why? And if the answer is always because I saw and then a brand or a person,

[00:29:20] Sean Walker: It's always a person for me, dude, and, and the brands are people, right? Because like even at Yamaha, El Acoustics, DMB, whatever, you know, the things we just talked about since we're in pro audio, it's always the person you saw there that that changes it up or makes the connection or, oh yeah, of course you can get that or do this or fix that problem you've had, or whatever.

Where. You, you, it's not a faceless company. Now they have, you have faces, you put a NAMM and a face to the company and now you've got somebody to deal with and talk to there. And your customer support goes through the roof, right?

[00:29:47] John Mlynczak: That's exactly what it is.

[00:29:48] Sean Walker: problem solving goes through the roof. And so when you've got a for us corporate show in the middle of someplace, you're like, oh, I know who to call it Yamaha.

I'll call Andy, right? Hey, I got this question. Hey, I know who to call it acoustics. I'll call Ryan or whatever, right? You got people to call now where you didn't before and it's freaking amazing to be able to build your network like that. And.

[00:30:05] John Mlynczak: Hit it.

[00:30:06] Sean Walker: My experience, uh, as a, I mean, we're, I own a sound company here in Seattle and it's a small sound company compared to Claire.

Right? But my experience is going to the NAMM show and meeting manufacturers, by and large, they are all stoked to see you, to get in touch with you, to have, you know, here's my card, reach out with whatever we need, and you reach out and they get back to you. And so now we're, we're able to build this network of people that will support us as we go do our work that we wouldn't have had before.

Right? It's fricking awesome, man.

[00:30:32] John Mlynczak: No, I I, I'm so glad you eloquently talked about the people. 'cause that's exactly it. Like who you as a sound company need to see is very different than maybe a, a specialty drum retailer, a guitar repair shop. And so we've actually dialed in like this. We spent all year under the hood redo it. So we, we wanna know.

Profiles of every single person at the show who they're connecting with, because that helps us make their show super successful. So even like the NAMM Show app, the new NAMM show app. We launched, you can search by segment community. You can slice and dice in information, registration questions. All of that helps us understand who's there.

So when someone's like at a great show, it's like, okay, why? Good. I'll make sure you continue seeing those people. When someone says, I didn't have a great show. Why was 'cause I didn't see cool. So that I could say, well, were they there and were you, did you not find them? And so we can help with that. Or two, if they're not there, we have all year to go out.

You know, I've gone out and visited companies. I mean, I travel most of the year just going out and visiting people. I visit people who don't show up to the show. I visit people who show up to the show religiously. Um, 'cause that's a lot of what we do. We're holding events in Europe or holding events in Latin America this year in 26.

Um, we, you know, travel in Japan for 10 days, like. We're out there engaging members all year and, and one of the things we'll have better than ever this year is actual data on who's there, who we need to engage more of, and maybe what they need. I mean, we're not just a trade show, we're a year round association, but like companies use the NAMM show to plan out what they're gonna do all year.

We need to use the NAMM Show to plan out what we're gonna do all year. So how much data do we have about people in the industry and what they need from us? Oh, we need a more AI marketing information. We'll do NAMM u webinars once a month. Log on as a member, check it out. We'll put in your portal log, watch it anytime.

Like whatever you need. That's kind of where, where we're at right now.

[00:32:26] Sean Walker: Dude. That's cool. That's awesome. What a super helpful tool and a great way to think about that for the entire community. Man. Thank you for putting in all that work and doing that. That's awesome. We appreciate you.

[00:32:35] John Mlynczak: Oh, I appreciate, I appreciate the thanks. Yeah, it's actually fun. I, I worked in software before this and I thought I was giving that world up, and then when I got here I was like, you know what? We're, yeah, we're a membership association. You know, we are, we're a subscription business that has accounts and users that an account, a company, subscribe to something and all of their users, their employees needs to get value.

I can do that. Let's do that. Okay. Let's you know, and we can have personas and we could customize, and so we have like a three year roadmap now. Like this is just the beginning now that we have personas, like imagine a world, you log in NAMM.org in like 2028 and it's like, hi Sean, here's recommended content for you.

Like, here's things you should check out. Oh, do you know these people? Do you wanna get like 10 networking requests based on people you should know in the industry? Cool. Here it is. Like that's all in our roadmap. Like we have this really, really ambitious long-term goal to like be that connection maker all the time.

[00:33:29] Sean Walker: dude. Cool. That'll be awesome.

[00:33:32] Andy Leviss: Yeah, and like in. And I mean, even with our, even with like our, you know, quote unquote media hats on, you know, I can see where that's useful. Where like, 'cause right now there's still a bit of that, like the PR reps who are doing their best and I don't blame that're like just kind of hitting everybody that could be broadly interested.

But if they're able to better target to like, not send guys like me or Sean's stuff that is like completely not of interest to our market, like that's useful data for them on that side of it too.

[00:33:58] John Mlynczak: Knowing who you reach. Yeah. That's, that's the other frontier, you know, and then this, the influencer, the creator lounge. Like what, what you, you know, Andy and Sean, what y'all do so effectively, you know, is you tell the story for these brands, you know, to the world. To the world that that can't come to the NAMM show.

And that's okay. You know, after COVID, there was a lot of questions when I first started. I mean, I was like first day, like, okay, John, is NAMM a consumer show or a trade show, or is it dead completely? I'm like, where's the lunchroom? Like can we, uh, start, start there? Like, try to own

[00:34:32] Sean Walker: Can I get a salad of a sparkle water and sort this out and I'm gonna need coffee please.

[00:34:36] John Mlynczak: dude? I'm the call. Yeah, I mean, exactly. It's like, that was it. But it was in the midst of like that 2023. We're still doing shows in the summer. It was a whole, uh, but what's really great now is. Like y'all as, as, as content creators with an audience like your audience. So like, yeah, like you two will be at the show and we see that, but we now know like the audience behind you.

So when you go up and talk to a brand, we can go to the brand and say, Hey, you just didn't get two people that like came to your booth. You got a audience of this size. That came to your booth and that's where we wanna be able to like track that and understand that and make sure that like, yeah, so only 70,000 people are gonna show up and be in person, but the NAMM show can reach 50 million people worldwide and we wanna qualify that.

[00:35:23] Sean Walker: Totally. Hey Andy, do you have the, the, speaking of that, do you have the specs of how many downloads we had this year?

[00:35:29] Andy Leviss: Oh my, I think total, total downloads, uh, somewhere around like a hundred thousand across all episodes. Yeah. That, that's what we said.

[00:35:38] Sean Walker: I was

[00:35:38] Andy Leviss: like, what?

[00:35:39] Sean Walker: I was like, I better mind my P's and Q's, and then Andy laughed and he's like, no, you won't. You know, but you're, but the point is, we say that not to, not to brag, but to, you're absolutely right, dude. It's not just two dudes going around the show. It's like, oh, hey, you're interact with this person.

They have a audience of a hundred thousand people a year. To go tell how awesome you are or how not awesome you are. So be awesome. Right.

[00:36:00] John Mlynczak: Well and back, you said, you had said earlier, you made the joke about like, you know, I have 59 people working their butts off and I'm on a podcast, but you know what? Right now in ary everyone's thinking about products, everyone's thinking about brand. So if I can get on here and talk to your a hundred thousand people.

About, you know, how to check it out, what to see, how to get the most out of what we do. Like that's great. And by the way, to you, a hundred thousand downloaders out there, you could download the NAMM Show app and see all the brands. Right now if you're not attending the NAMM show, but you wanna like go in and like see the brands.

If you click on the brands on the map, you know the brands have like digital upgrades, they have product, they have links, they have all this stuff. Just go and actually, you don't have to download the app. You can or you can go to NAMM.org. It's all there too. You could check out everything and engage with all the brands.

Even if you're not at the show. We don't hide anything. I mean, we're an association that needs to serve the industry. Like we don't have a lot of secrets, you know? So like everything's out there. So don't think just because you can't make the trip to Anaheim that you can't engage and check out and see everything that's going on.

[00:37:06] Sean Walker: Totally, dude. Yeah, that's cool that there's not a lot of secrets except for at the Shera guitars after party. We don't talk about that. But other than that, there's no secrets.

[00:37:12] John Mlynczak: As.

[00:37:14] Andy Leviss: I mean.

[00:37:15] Sean Walker: Yeah, right.

[00:37:16] Andy Leviss: And, and I will on that front too, uh, throw out to folks, since we are putting this out next week before, before the show, that if folks see stuff in the a, in the app, on the website, online, that they want to hear what Sean and I think about it for whatever crazy reason, I don't know that I wanna know what I think about it, but like, hit us up on, on Discord, hit us up on the Facebook group, shoot us emails, like, let us know, like we wanna know what y'all out there are interested in and make sure we can tell you about it.

[00:37:43] Sean Walker: Oh yeah. I would love to go touch some gear and play with the knobs and see if I can't break something for you. Like, come on, come on with it. What do you wanna know about? Hit us up and we'll go figure it out, you know, and we'll, uh, I'm miserable at social media. I'm gonna start there. I am miserable at social media.

I am not an influencer taking pictures and doing all this stuff all the time. I'm, I'm horrible at that. But if there's something you wanna see pictures of or video of, I'll, I'll take it and I'll send it to you. Like, just let us know. In the meetup event in Discord or something. And we'll, we'll get you the picks and the details you need and, uh, make sure you got the info you need to.

And the, the NAMM app has a bunch of good stuff too, so I'm stoked to, I didn't, didn't undownload from last year, so I'm just gonna update and see what, what new stuff is in there, John, and what you guys came up with. I'm stoked to see how it's evolved.

[00:38:27] John Mlynczak: Or you could download the new app and delete the one from last year.

[00:38:31] Sean Walker: Oh, it's

[00:38:31] Andy Leviss: Oh, is it like a Totally,

[00:38:32] John Mlynczak: All new? Yeah,

[00:38:33] Sean Walker: Okay.

[00:38:34] John Mlynczak: We are literally, we're launching a product, here's a, so we're launching a product this year. Completely new dashboard under the hood. We have a completely new CRM data model. We have, um, new dashboard on NAMM to capture companies to really understand.

'cause I dirty laundry before it was kind of like, oh, we have X amount of yellow badges. But it's like, no, no, I wanna know. Who they are, who they work for. So we now have all of it, you know, goes into our Salesforce, et cetera. Um, and then just for data privacy, like, you know, it's all with NAMM. Uh, but then when you go register even a new registration system we're using, um, and then that system connects with the new app.

So like we can then pull in after the show like. Hey, this person is this role. They answered these questions on registration. Uh, they, they selected these events on the app, so like I could dial in and say, show me everyone who works in live event production. Show me what they did at the NAMM show. Like, that's the level of detail I can get in.

So it's all new systems. Launching all new everything at the same time is quite fun. There are no bugs at all. There's nothing going wrong. It's fine. Everything's working as intended. There are not bugs, there are features that you just didn't know you need yet.

[00:39:44] Sean Walker: Right, right. Okay. Microsoft.

[00:39:46] John Mlynczak: Uh, yeah, exactly. Um, no, we're gonna, yeah, it's gonna make a macro hard joke, but I'm not gonna go there.

Um, but I, you know, so it's cool that we, we have that. This year and you were mentioning like just that dial. I love the fact though that like I've never thought about like you having your audience like have you be their like eyes and ears on the ground. That's actually pretty cool. I want your audience to like load you up with things, like check it out and get back to us.

That's kind of cool, like, Hey bud, since you're at NAMM, will you like check out this thing and gimme info.

[00:40:17] Andy Leviss: And we've definitely gotten that in the, in the Discord in the past, which is why I wanna like put that out officially. And also it helps us 'cause there's just like so much to see and particularly since I'm like kind of doing double duty with like, you know, my two different hats on, like knowing what folks think sounds cool from away is like super duper helpful.

[00:40:36] John Mlynczak: Oh, I love it. Well, I love you're doing the thing for Yamaha, Andy. I mean, they're such a phenomenal company. Of course, Tom Sumner, the was the previous chair of, um, NAMM. He's just the immediate past chair of NAMM and I was in Japan this summer, or last October, you know, visiting with their leaders out there.

Got to see some of the factories and, and talk and talk about a company that's just organized top to bottom. It's, yeah,

[00:41:02] Andy Leviss: And like there's, there's been some like big internal changes in the last year to kind of put a little more power and flexibility behind like the pro audio side, which is awesome. Which is honestly part of what led to the, the tech support engineer position I have opening up was part of all of that stuff, which is, is super cool to see happening.

[00:41:21] John Mlynczak: Yeah, they made like a whole division out of it. Right? They kinda out. Yeah. Yeah. I

[00:41:24] Andy Leviss: Yeah, it's basically pro audio and business solutions are now. Separate in law, so like still under Tom, and then there's Soro, uh, kind of runs our side of it.

[00:41:33] Sean Walker: Business solutions like you can solve all my, dude, you gonna run my company for me?

[00:41:37] Andy Leviss: no, no, but no, but we, we, we can set up, we can set up a ball in a Teams or Zoom room for you. It's an, and it, it is biz ass, so we don't call it bs.

[00:41:49] Sean Walker: Copy that. Copy that. All right. New na, new NAMM app downloaded. I'm stoked to dig through this thing. That's gonna be killer dude.

[00:41:56] John Mlynczak: Yeah, it's a, it's a pretty cool app, and again, we're trying to like, we're like every, their company, like our, our job is to like, you know, make people happy. We're a service organization. We're a service organization. We also, like, we're a platform business, like we're like. Uber or, um, like VRBO or, you know, like we're, we're a platform business.

It creates a platform that people can interact and we actually own nothing. We lease, we lease two, we lease a full block of Anaheim City property for two weeks, and we sell. Blocks of space and we, we lease rooms and we do all this stuff. But the cool thing is like we create this platform for the industry to like thrive.

And we don't like that. That never gets old. And

[00:42:38] Sean Walker: What made you choose

[00:42:39] John Mlynczak: elves. 'cause when it, when it finishes on like the day after, we're like, let's talk about next year. You know, we're already like hyped.

[00:42:47] Sean Walker: That's awesome, dude. What made you, what made you choose Anaheim other than obviously Disneyland's across the street, so while the show's going on, you could be riding rollercoasters.

[00:42:54] John Mlynczak: That's, that's all I do

[00:42:55] Sean Walker: Okay, perfect. Yeah. Yeah. Great.

[00:42:56] John Mlynczak: Yeah, exactly. Um, well it's interesting. This is our 50th year in Anaheim this year. 125 years in NAMM, 50 years in Anaheim. And you know, I'll tell you to be honest, every few years we RFP, every city in the country, number one for best rates. For number two to make sure we're doing it right.

And we have, you know, members of the board and committees and all this stuff going. Um, and we just signed with Anaheim again through 2030. And we looked, I mean, we looked everywhere, you know, and we, we realized Anaheim works, uh, for several reasons. One, Southern California is the perfect place to gather in January.

January is the right time. We know summer's not good people. January is the time for our industry. In Southern California, you get all the Asian folks that could come over Australia. Everyone in the US loves the warm weather. Europeans have the longest kind of journey, but they love, again, they love the warm weather.

So Southern California's perfect, and if you'd look like San Diego or LA or Anaheim and all those areas, Anaheim works perfect for us because it is our contained community. We actually did, we looked at la full disclosure. The problem with la, I mean, it's a great, great facility, amazing people, all that, but you're all over the city.

You could, ima, everyone's gonna have pop-up events here and there. Like in Anaheim, we're all on that campus. We have all those hotels, we have all these events happening. You can walk even like House of Blues, some other things that happen, quote off campus. It's not that far away. So it keeps us all together as a community.

We got the big Yamaha stage right in the middle. Anaheim does a really good job of keeping us together as an industry, and that works really well. You have ease of access to LAX and Orange County Airport, all of that. Um, but you have that contained community aspect. That's, that's really cool. So we, um, we like Anaheim, we like what the, the city does for us.

[00:44:46] Sean Walker: That's awesome. And, and it is, it is a really good setup because you know, with those two massive hotels right there, Yamaha in the middle of 'em, the trade show there, it makes it so easy to come, attend, walk around and, and do it. It is, it's a great setup. I was just, I was just curious how it got there.

'cause I didn't, you know. If you got the guy that knows it's, ask the questions. Figure out why we're, you know. What's up,

[00:45:04] John Mlynczak: No, we just are, and, and Disney, I mean Disney, how a lot of people like going to Disney. Uh, the people at Disney are fantastic, but the city because of Disney, there's a lot of big events in the city and, and like, we're a massive trade show. And when you, I think we're. 30th, 37th or 36th, biggest in the country.

I forget what number

[00:45:20] Sean Walker: dude? Awesome.

[00:45:21] John Mlynczak: normal number every year. Um, but that it, you can't just roll into a city and do that. And yeah, like Vegas is always doing trade shows, LA convention, but like, you need a city that knows what to do and like Anaheim is just so well versed because of Disney and all of that.

I mean, you know, a lot of people are talking about security right now, like the, the. Police force, the security, like they just have it all dialed in because they have Disney, they have big conventions. So it's also a safe place, uh, for industry as well. And we do a lot to secure that. Um, it's really, it's, it's a lot easier to secure a closed perimeter.

Than it is, you know, spots all over a city. So it's, um, it's the right place and I think people just know and it's, it's, it's also you're gonna get not stuck, but you've been there so long. I mean, there are people that like, I know for a fact like, don't even like talk to each other and just show up at Morton's at 7:00 PM on Wednesday night.

'cause they've done that for like 25 years.

[00:46:13] Sean Walker: totally, dude.

[00:46:15] John Mlynczak: They don't even have to like mention like, no, like, oh yeah, no, we're gonna do breakfast here on Saturday morning. You're my Saturday morning breakfast standing. That's it. Like they know that, you know, we know the field.

[00:46:25] Andy Leviss: Yeah, well, there's like, and there's, there's so much spit, like there's the arena that, like RCF does their thing in. There's, you know, there's like two halls massive enough that, you know, like how many years ago was it that the pro audio side and, and music kinda split off into the separate halls because it wasn't always like

[00:46:42] John Mlynczak: they built the extension? Yeah. The, the, a CCC North extension was mid 2018, something like that. Um, but yeah, that hall, I mean, again, we never said, Hey, let's move pro audio to like, we're not trying to like separate pro audio from everyone else.

[00:46:55] Sean Walker: Yes you are. And thank you so

[00:46:57] Andy Leviss: Yeah.

[00:46:58] John Mlynczak: it's the design of Anaheim, but it actually works perfectly because you have all those demo rooms around.

We can alternate demos. You can see the product on the floor. You can have that experience

[00:47:07] Andy Leviss: And you can have the bangy, yeah, the Bangy Crashy Hall over there and the critical listening hall over here.

[00:47:13] John Mlynczak: The bangy. Yeah, crashy things are in a different place, so it actually really works. Having that like area, it is just like pro audio has its thing. You're right, we have the arena, we have the stages. You know, every stage is sponsored by, you know, some companies so they can hear their products and action. I think that's really cool.

We have 175 bands out there, uh, over the. It's just a, it's a, and that's saying too, like the amount of the bands we can put in, like, 'cause we have great partners. We can put bands in Hilton, Marriott, on stages outside. Weston Sheridan. We can control all of that. Like, that's why Anaheim works. And there's a lot of, there's, you know, pros and cons to other cities, but we, we gotta control it.

Our industry wants to be together. They wanna feel safe, they wanna feel together as a community. And that block of Anaheim does it for us.

[00:47:57] Sean Walker: Dude, that's so cool. And it's cool to hear, you know, the behind the scenes about it too. 'cause it does work really well. And having been an attendee for many years, be able to walk around and see all that, experience, all that, and go, oh, this is what I wanna see right now. I'm gonna stay. Then wander around and go, oh, this is what I wanna see.

And you know, sometimes you got a super tight plan and you're organized and sometimes you're just like, ah, me and this coffee, you're gonna wander around and see what we can see. And you can just not have to get an Uber, not have to go plan transportation. You can just wander, you know? And the, one of the best parts, one of the absolute most incredible best parts of pro audio and mi being separated in two halls over the last couple years has been, for those of you that aren't there. There's a coffee stand between the two, so you can just keep caffeinated as you're going back and forth

[00:48:40] John Mlynczak: my bridge. So that's my kind

[00:48:42] Sean Walker: totally.

[00:48:43] John Mlynczak: second level like walkway. It's not that crowded either. Usually can get in.

[00:48:48] Sean Walker: Yeah. You get a coffee back and forth, you know, in five or 10 minutes instead of 20 or 30, and that, that's the jam right there. It's just an excuse to go get caffeinated.

[00:48:56] John Mlynczak: Oh, trust me, I, I'm like full on caffeine. I kinda, I asked 'em if I could have just an IV on one of those things. They roll around the hospital with the

[00:49:03] Sean Walker: around espresso shots

[00:49:04] John Mlynczak: have a straight up like that. They won't give it to me yet. If I could get the IV and Melin mayhem to happen, I'd be, but we'll see if we can get it in

[00:49:11] Sean Walker: bro. Here's what we're doing. We're going camelbacks this year under the suit jacket. Camelback. Boom. Done. No, Ivy

[00:49:17] John Mlynczak: double wall insulated. If Yeti can make a camelback, dude, Yeti Camel.

[00:49:21] Sean Walker: Yeti camelbacks, bro. That's what's up. That's what we're doing.

[00:49:24] John Mlynczak: Yeti, your sponsorship for the

[00:49:26] Sean Walker: we'll call it the Melin Sack. That's right. Yeti. Sponsor the Melin Sack.

[00:49:31] Andy Leviss: Love it. Sold,

[00:49:33] Sean Walker: That's it, dude.

Totally. And it's just, it's only for coffee, only for hot drinks. Don't be putting your weird stuff in there. Right. Obviously there's some shops or, uh, you know, something in there to keep it going. But

[00:49:43] John Mlynczak: That's the, that's the product. That's the foundation donation product. Buy your Melin Sachs, sponsored by Yeti Insulated coffee or anything you wanna put hides perfectly under your jacket.

[00:49:54] Sean Walker: Killer dude. Killer.

[00:49:55] John Mlynczak: I think it's done. I think it's officially

[00:49:58] Sean Walker: awesome. Send mine to Audio Engineer Northwest when you're ready. And that'll be sweet. Send my, put my logo on it when they make it.

[00:50:04] John Mlynczak: the joint entrance right here. There's no conflict of interest whatsoever. Let's just do

[00:50:08] Sean Walker: Let's do it. It's on.

[00:50:09] John Mlynczak: Side of jv.

[00:50:11] Sean Walker: Yeah. Yeah. Just call the guys at Yeti, sort it out. Let 'em know when our stuff shows up.

[00:50:15] John Mlynczak: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Come on Yeti. We're ready for it.

[00:50:18] Sean Walker: Totally.

[00:50:18] Andy Leviss: so, so Sean, since you mentioned it, we haven't talked about the NAMM Foundation yet. So do you wanna, you wanna tell folks a little bit about that?

[00:50:25] John Mlynczak: I was trying to slip it in and you, you took the bait, so Andy, that was killer. So yeah, so I just reminded everyone, everything we do is about giving back to the industry like NAMM. NAMM as an entity is a nonprofit and we, you know, everything we do, we actually fund the NAMM Foundation, plus the NAMM Foundation gets very generous donations.

Everything that goes to the NAMM Foundation, any additional donation to the NAMM Foundation is immediately recirculated back to the industry. So we as a, you know, quote unquote business, look at what we do to fund the NAMM Foundation. And I know people like, I just wanna reemphasize like we actually, you know.

Our job is to just make enough money to give back to the industry in a powerful way. We're not a private company. We don't have to like make a super profitable trade show. We don't have to drive fees anywhere. We just have to make a super successful trade show and fund the NAMM Foundation and give back.

So this year we were able to give a million dollars. Grants and scholarships. We increased our, uh, our, our grants to 57 organizations up from 32 the year before. And one thing that we're really, uh, proud of is our, if you go on NAMM foundation.org and you look at our grantees, we are granting every segment of the industry.

We believe that our work needs to represent our industry. Just like you think about NAMM Show halls. So you know our grantee? Yes. We're granting school music. Yes. We're granting afterschool production programs. We're granting like live event, like scholarship program. We're granting every, so if you go look at our grantees, it actually lists what segment of the industry that grantee serves and if it serves creating more music makers or career mobility.

Particularly for the live event sector, one of the things we hear, number one from all these companies is employees. Employees, employees. We need talent, we need careers. So we actually, there's a lot of organizations out there helping, you know, employees get on the road. There's a lot of, you know, being on the road is hard, mentally, physically, so we're actually granting, we have, um, grants that fall in career mobility.

In creating more music makers so we can serve that. So I just want folks to know that like NAMMS giving profile is representative of our industry. Anything you give to the NAMM Foundation gets distributed amongst that profile of our industry, which we're really proud of. Um, it's 125 years, we got a very generous $125,000 matching.

Donation from, uh, Chris Martin of RCF, Martin and Company. So any dollar you give to NAMM Foundation, uh, at the show during registration, there's a, there's a donation question gets matched up to 150, $105,000. So we can raise $250,000 that immediately. A hundred percent of that money goes back into organizations that are creating more music makers, creating more, uh, workforce for our industry.

So that's what we, that's what we get up and, and, and that's what we're passionate about every day.

[00:53:18] Sean Walker: I'm in, I'll donate. That'll be, that's awesome. Uh, the solving the workforce problem is actually much simpler than most people would make it. The trick is to pay people,

[00:53:28] John Mlynczak: Yeah.

[00:53:28] Sean Walker: and a lot of the people that are complaining about not having the workforce, aren't offering enough money for people to

[00:53:33] John Mlynczak: Yeah, I we're, we're in a lot of conversations around this. I totally, yeah, I mean it's like, you know, contractor versus full-time employee benefits. Yeah. I mean, it's full-time. You talk about like someone like Mike Strickland who's been paying people as full-time employees with benefits at Bandit Lights his whole career.

Like he's out there setting the bar, um, for it. And Yeah. And you know, we talk about this, obviously we have the Parnelli awards that awards people, so Yeah, we're in that conversation too. We wanna do right by people.

[00:54:00] Sean Walker: Totally. That's awesome. That's awesome. Is there anything, John, that we didn't ask you that you'd wish we would've asked you or that we should, I mean, we're getting about an hour, so let's you know, let's not carry on too much longer 'cause you and I both got stuff to do today. Andy's going back to twiddling his thumbs, eating bon bonds, but we have stuff to do today.

What, what? What should we have asked

[00:54:19] Andy Leviss: A sideways at the pile of support cases you gotta get back to after lunch.

[00:54:22] John Mlynczak: Alright, look, Andy. Andy has a Yamaha gig. Now I know exactly what he's got

[00:54:26] Sean Walker: A hundred percent? I'm

[00:54:27] John Mlynczak: He is got the, uh, no, you guys have been great. I mean, look, you've, you've, you've let me say everything I wanna say, like, I just want all your, your listeners to know, like NAMMs, I, I can truly say like NAMMS in it for the right reasons.

We're trying to grow an industry. We're, we're trying to support all the companies out there. We're deeply committed to serving all the people in the companies. We just don't think of like. A company by NAMM. We think about every person in there. We've got a, a long roadmap and big aspirations of what we can do.

Uh, the NAMM show, we're thinking carefully about everyone, all the interactions, uh, we're here to serve. So, you know, if we get it right, tell us, answer the post show survey. Check out NAMM, make your plans to come in the future, like we're gonna keep. Getting this right for the industry because all we do is listen and deliver.

Listen and deliver, which is kind of fun 'cause I don't have investors to please. I have an industry to please tell us what you want. We're gonna deliver it and we're gonna keep refining on that and, and make it great and give back.

[00:55:23] Sean Walker: I love that. That's awesome. Question la. Last question. How many of those post show surveys, post show surveys, are feet hurt? Morton's was delicious. Coffee was fine. See you next year. Like.

[00:55:35] John Mlynczak: We do get a, we do get a good bit. I mean, we've got a 20%, uh, rate. I'd love to get a 50% rate. We're actually this year, the survey will go out Sunday morning. It's ready, it's done. And like, if you're at, to just, just do the survey, even if it's like a, we wanna know, I mean, in fact we have like goals for our company, have our, like, you know, OKRs, we have goals and all this.

Our number one, okay R is like 90% customer satisfaction. Our number, people ask me sometimes what's the number one goal for the NAMM organization. It's customer satisfaction. People have to be satisfied with what we're delivering. 'cause our product is an experience for people. It's not a booth, it's not a trade show.

It's an experience that makes our industry better. So tell us, we really, really wanna know. 'cause we, we literally spend months going over all of that and then planning to make it better next year.

[00:56:20] Sean Walker: Dude. Awesome. John, thank you so much for this time, man. I really appreciate it. It, did you have something to say,

[00:56:25] Andy Leviss: I, I've, I have one more question I was gonna

[00:56:27] Sean Walker: Oh, yeah, yeah,

[00:56:27] Andy Leviss: it's what we used to always wrap up with and we haven't yet. So John, outside, outside of Morgan's and, and, and the coffee and the Bridgeway, what's, what's your favorite secret spot that, uh, if folks get one really awesome meal while they're at NAMM in Anaheim, where would you tell 'em to go?

Or do you never get a chance to escape and do that?

[00:56:44] John Mlynczak: you know, um, I would say one place, I, I was actually up there for some meetings earlier and my wife and I went over to the Anaheim White House. It's this Italian high-end restaurant. The manager there, they've been there for a while. They had this fire. They

[00:56:57] Sean Walker: Been

[00:56:57] John Mlynczak: were fired 10 years ago. They came back. I, I, I love that place.

The food's great, the vibe's great. The other thing that people, uh, should know about that place is they donate so much of their food to local community. They give back in a huge way. So I'm a big fan of that place and what they do. Um, I like to steer people there 'cause they're just good people.

[00:57:16] Sean Walker: Yeah, dude, that place was awesome. I went last year with the RCF team after the arena show, and it was freaking delicious. It, it wasn't a hard sell to get the RCF guys to go to Italian food. I'll just, you know what I mean? It wa I didn't have to twist any arms.

[00:57:27] John Mlynczak: They're great for the community.

[00:57:28] Andy Leviss: That, that's, that's that meal I missed 'cause I got, I got sick.

[00:57:32] Sean Walker: Yeah, dude. Totally.

Okay. The one other one that I, that I'll chime in on is, dude, there's a burger joint in downtown Disney called Black Bottle. Or Black Rock or Black. Black something. It's so freaking good. Maybe the best burger I've ever had in my life. If you're a burger person,

[00:57:45] John Mlynczak: I am a burger person. My wife and I have a, uh, my wife and I have a rule, another like insight. If we're, if we're looking at a menu for more than three minutes and we can't make a decision, we look at each other, say J-G-T-F-B. Just get the freaking burger.

[00:57:58] Sean Walker: Love

[00:57:58] John Mlynczak: That's the rule. You can't make a decision. Jfb

[00:58:01] Andy Leviss: this.

[00:58:02] John Mlynczak: just if, what do you want?

I jg tfb fine. And you never regret it. You even a bad burger is still you.

[00:58:09] Sean Walker: still a burger, dude. No. This is an incredible burger. And my, my Southern California friends are screaming right now at the, at the radio, right? Like, dude, we told you a hundred times what this thing is called and you can't remember it, but it's, it's in downtown Disney, black something and it makes burgers and they're freaking incredible.

So like, let's do, let's do Italian one night and burgers another night, John. We'll, we'll find time the schedule and go tell some

[00:58:27] John Mlynczak: Well y'all, y'all tell me how it is 'cause I'll be running around to 18 receptions.

[00:58:31] Sean Walker: bring you a

[00:58:31] Andy Leviss: Yeah, we'll bring

[00:58:32] Sean Walker: bring you a burger. We'll throw it at you. You can

[00:58:34] John Mlynczak: I'll pay you tomorrow for a cheeseburger today.

[00:58:39] Sean Walker: All right, NAMM it, we gotta go.

[00:58:42] John Mlynczak: Can they make the NAMM burger

[00:58:43] Sean Walker: Yeah, right. A hundred percent.

[00:58:45] John Mlynczak: cheese? You know, call burger

[00:58:47] Sean Walker: A NAMM it with cheese. Why is that? 'cause of the metric system. Look at the big brain on John.

[00:58:55] John Mlynczak: pretty tasting burger.

[00:58:57] Sean Walker: Yeah, right. That is a tasty burger.

[00:59:02] John Mlynczak: you, if you can't in some with Pulp fiction quotes, and you can't, you can't live.

[00:59:07] Sean Walker: Yeah. Right. Totally, totally. Well John, thanks for coming on, dude. I appreciate it. Thanks to Allen and Heath and RCF for letting us yap about audio and fun stuff. We'll see you guys at NAMM. That's the pod y'all.

Music: “Break Free” by Mike Green