Barry Wood's NAMM Oddities 2023 Edition

Packrat Barry

Welcome to the 2023 edition of the NAMM Oddities.

Namm Show 2023

It doesn't seem like it's been a year since the last NAMM Show, probably because it wasn't.

It was another year of “NAMM Lite” with far fewer exhibitors and attendees than in The Before Times. Still I was surprised, impressed, and sometimes bewildered by the plethora of inventions let loose upon the world. I'm curious to see how/if the 2024 show will bounce back, since it will next be in January again.

Thanks once again goes out to Tracy for taking time out of her own writing to catch typos, fix incomplete thoughts, and silently make me seem like I'm two people's worth of funny.

-Barry

A brief history of the NAMM Oddities…

After attending the Winter NAMM show for a number of years, I'd noticed that the exhibitors seem to fall into two categories: the established company showing its new (and sometimes vaporous) products and the independent start-up company looking to be noticed by distributors, music stores, potential investors and the music press.

It seemed that every year I spent more of my NAMM time checking out the various small companies that got stashed in some dark corner of the show. Many of the products from these companies were never seen by the average visitor, sometimes because they only appealed to a small market, or because most people simply couldn't figure out what the hell they were supposed to do.

That isn't to say that these products are ill-conceived or poorly executed. It's just that sometimes they're, well, a little odd. This situation made me think that there ought to be a place for people to come to marvel and wonder at all of these products. Thus, the NAMM Oddities were born.

©2023 Barry Wood