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Frankfurt Photo Review | |
Article from International Musician & Recording World, April 1975 |
It was very much an export trade fair at Frankfurt this year. The fair is always about exports, of course, but there was greater determination than ever in the British contingent to make it a really bumper year for overseas orders.
Most exhibitors finished the fair well, but the fair started slowly and the first few days were really grim.
Scandinavian and Japanese buyers were the busiest and exhibitors were finding new export areas opening up to them as well as an increase of sales in already established territories.
The usual deals were done usually outside the exhibition hall, in the clubs and over breakfasts Ludwig going to Rose-Morris for the U.K., Moog to Selmer and so on. Eventually it was a British fair!
Charles Raines, export manager of Boosey & Hawkes, was more than pleased with his company's success at Frankfurt. "We had anticipated tremendous success with our new range of Hawk amps, hut what surprised me was the all round success that we had, with virtually every product exhibited".
George Ostreicher told our reporter that "We did quite well this year in fact, we surpassed last year's performance, which we hadn't expected to do".
Ostreicher added that Cardiff's new range of Western Gold strings did very well indeed, and will soon be available to the U.K. retailers.
Colin Barret, Carlsbro's export manager has good reason to smile when he recalls this year's fair. "This was our tenth time at Frankfurt, and it was the best by far for us. We easily doubled our orders over last year".
It was the new Carlsbro solid state range of amplifiers which brought home most of the bacon.
CBS' three stands tended to dominate much of the show and as can be imagined great interest was shown in all Fender products. Also attracting great interest was the range of Arbiter guitars and amps. Roger's percussion as usual was a focal point of one of the stands and an impressive rotating display showed a magnificent white Rogers kit off to perfection.
Things went very well for Cleartone this year. "The best news from our point of view is that we signed an agreement with a distributor who will take us into Germany, Austria and Switzerland", Roger Heafield told our reporter. "For a kickoff, we disposed of all our samples to this distributor", which is very promising indeed.
There was a very satisfying amount of all round interest in the J.T. Coppock stand at Frankfurt. As J.P. Lawson told our reporter, "The new Elgen amps, with the flared R.A. bin attracted the most attention. We did quite a bit of business with German and Scandinavian retailers".
Davoli's attractive display drew as much attention as usual this year. Items of particular interest on the stand were a new mixer to follow the well known Davoli Synth, the Davoli Synth B which incorporates far more features that its predecessors but at only slightly increased price.
Davoli was showing a new speaker unit in the style of the Bease dispersion speaker cabinet. Drivers are 8x6 twin cone units and power output is 100 watts. Price is under £140 and Jeff Gardiner British Managing Director for the U.K. arm, told us that all samples had been sold.
Bert Coleman of Dubreq was, as he says, a busy man at Frankfurt. "It was totally exhausting", he told us. "Our stand was packed all day long from 9 to 6. The Stylophone 350S was the only really new product at the exhibition".
"This year's fair did us enormous good," said Peter Zinovieff, of Electronic Music Studios. It was their third year, and the first in which they had a stand in the British section. All the foreign dealers were represented, and the Germans in particular were very keen on the E.M.S. stand. Zinovieff stated that E.M.S. did a significant amount of business.
Things went well for Farfisa at Frankfurt, according to Alan Braisby. "We were exhibiting our new range of home organs, the Balfour, Beaumont and Balmoral models, as well as improved versions of our established range of portable instruments for professional musicians, and there was a good deal of interest expressed in both lines."
Framus' boss Fred Wilfer reported an excellent trade fair with a great increase in export orders. Seen here with International Musician's Advertisement Director, Richard Desmond (right), and one of Framus' top German retail dealers, Fred Wilfer (centre), told IM, "It's been a great year for us, we're particularly looking to increase our share of the UK market."
"I think you could say we did well B.A. Jeffrey of G.M.S. told us. "We surpassed 1974 figures on Tuesday of the week, and the business remained good for the duration of the fair".
The new fixed mike stand from Peter Nicholas did exceptionally well, as did the Pica to range of guitar and bass strings. In addition, General Music and Peter & Nicholas established an agency in Morocco.
Clive Bradbury is. as he says, extremely well pleased with HH's results this year. "It was phenomenal", he told our reporter. "Last year one third of our output went in export. After Frankfurt this year, we have more than doubled that, and the initial demand alone for our new range of amps has for outstripped production".
The results of Frankfurt were nothing but good for John Hornby Skewes. Sales were up more than 30% over last year, and the best news of all was a big order of the Miles Platting range of amplifiers by a major German retail group. The range of Herald Guitar Strings, unveiled at this year's exhibition, also excited a great deal of attention, and Rex Fleetwood is well pleased with Frankfurt '75.
"Fantastic — that's the only word for it", James Howe spokesman Robin Corfieid told us. "Rotosound's Super Bass String did very well indeed, especially among German groups and buyers, and we awarded Horst Wesseley our German distributor ship".
Ganne of Paris also were awarded sole rights to market Rotosound strings in France. Corfield noted that James Howe skipped Frankfurt last year, but had found it well worth the effort in 1975.
"We had more interest this year, in both our 30 watt valve amplifier and our 50 watt transistorised amp, than we ever expected," Don Howard of Jennings told us. He added that although the German market seemed a bit dead, the French agency inquiries were more numerous than any time in the past four years.
Frankfurt was a mixture of bad and good news — and even the bad news turned up good for Cliff Cooper. Cooper's receptionist, the lovely Jenny Murd, was offered a part in a film while in Frankfurt. She has taken it, and will leave Orange. But even that cloud had it's silver lining — Orange will be managing Jenny!
The rest of the good news is that Orange took orders for 400 of their twin reverb units.
Premier came back from Frankfurt having done 20 per cent more business than the target they set themselves. "It was a very good year for us," said Sales director Roger Horrobin. "We had a great deal of interest from buyers from all the European countries, particularly from Denmark and Sweden.
"We were delighted beyond our wildest dreams," said J.E. St. Pier and a glance at the record shows why Project Electronics had every reason to be so. Their orders were far in excess of last year, and indeed, they trebled their projected target figure.
"Everyone was eager to see what Dave Simms was up to, and we really are pleased with the results, St. Pier continued. "I think we must have been one of the busiest stands in the British section."
The 1975 Trade Fair saw Reslosound present for the first time in several years. According to George Stow, it was well worth the effort. The Reslosound Radio Mikes were the most successful of the exhibits at Frankfurt, with orders coming in from Europe, Japan and South Africa, and the Dynamic Mikes came a close second in the attention stakes. And to top it all off, Reslosound sold 100 Reslo Cabaret Microphones — to an English buyer!
"Excellent, excellent", was Bob Wilson's reply when we asked him how Rose-Morris had done at Frankfurt. "The new Marshall transistorised amps were the highlight of our stand and of course they attracted enormous attention. And, to top it all, we came away with the Ludwig U.K. franchise. In addition to Ludwig's range of drums, Rose-Morris will be marketing the entire range of Ludwig percussion instruments.
'I was absolutely amazed at how well we did, considering how hard the times are", Pete Tulett of Rosetti said. "We had our best ever show, and we made contacts - in just about every country except Red China!"
Frankfurt '75 meant a special kind of success for Keith Hitchcock, it was Sharma's sixth trip to the Fair, and Hitchcock says that "This was really the big year for us. in the past we've been selling to people. This year they came to us to buy". The new range which Sharma introduced at Frankfurt '75 meant that although Hitchcock took the same number of orders this year as he did in 1974, the actual number on the books was far larger.
Big news for Larry Macari's Sola Sound Company at Frankfurt was the landing of a large South American order for Colorsound pedals. Colorsound Products are already exported to 47 different countries and the Brazillian order came only after considerable effort.
"We've been trying to break into the South American market for some time, but their strange import controls have always proved to be a barrier".
Soundcraft's fine range of mixers were on display this year under the auspices of I.M.S., who look after their distribution in Belgium, The Netherlands, Luxembourg and Germany. Phil Dudderidge stated that "We had a great deal of interest from dealers, but what pleasantly surprised us was the number of inquiries we had from German musicians.
This was Soundout's second trip to Frankfurt, and as such it was exceedingly rewarding. "The whole point of Frankfurt for us is not so much to sell as to make contacts with dealers around the world", Dave Street said.
Frankfurt proved a great surprise for Vitavox this year. They unveiled their new 4 kHz horn this year, and it attracted a great deal of attention, but the real surprise was the revival of interest in the Multicell Horn. Fabricated from sheet metal, the Multicell has long been a good seller for Vitavox, but the interest in it this year was truly astonishing.
Ted Kneller of Western Organs was out in force with his new Washburn range of amplification. These attractively styled units could be the start of something big as a great deal of thought had been given to the design of the range. We thought that the combination amplifier could be a big selling line. We were told that the promotion for the whole range would start later in the Spring.
This was the first year at Frankfurt for Zoot Horn and Brian Hawkins is sure that it was fantastic for them. "We had 98 agency enquiries for our 10-4 mixer, including a direct enquiry from German's top pop group Can. Our object in going was to get on the map in Europe, and we certainly did. The buyers were absolutely knocked out by our modular mixer, and many told me that it was the best modular mixer they'd ever seen in Europe".
Ric Brown of Kemble-Yamaha told our reporter that "We spent most of Frankfurt walking about, keeping our eyes open to see what everyone else was doing. We weren't, of course, very interested in the Yamaha stand, as we had seen the equipment before the fair, but we did think that it was one of the most interesting stands in Frankfurt." The picture shows a highly advanced console synthesiser demonstrated at the fair.
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