NAMM Show 2025: back in black?

With the return of a few major brands, NAMM 2025 was supposed to be the big comeback edition for a trade show that is also a significant indication of the well-being of the music industry. The results are in, and they are unequivocal: morale is high, and a clear artistic renewal is bringing along some very interesting brands to the foreground.

Here’s what you missed in case you weren’t paying attention:

NAMM stands for North American Music Merchants, and it is a group aimed at lobbying in favor of more people playing an instrument, in any shape or form. Every year, they gather for a massive show – you guessed it, the NAMM Show – in Anaheim, South of Los Angeles, where all the instrument builders from all over the world come to show their newest gear and meet store owners, distributors and artists. Back in January 2020, the show had been met with a huge success, and it remains a record-breaking edition as far as the amount of exhibitors and visitors alike. Then COVID happened, and the music business got into the habit of working remotely. The following NAMM Shows have been much more understated affairs, so much so that a few birds of ill omen were already talking about the Show being a thing of the past. To their credit, it was hard to imagine a NAMM Show without the main brands Fender, Gibson, Marshall, Boss or Taylor leading the pack and also being significant attractions for the visitors. Only Martin was left and they must’ve felt quite lonely being the sole giant left.

This is why the industry got hopeful when Marshall and Fender announced that they would be coming back for NAMM 2025. Then Gibson decided to come as well but on their own terms, i.e. they had a secret booth that was only for business partners and VIPs. Then Fender decided to do the same, depriving the other exhibitors and visitors of the two main historic brands of the electric guitar. They might have been trying to prove a point to the NAMM Show organizers, that their presence was so important that they deserved special conditions.

New kids on the block

But overtime, visitors have grown used to those brands being absent from the show, and their non-attendance has only reaffirmed a growing suspicion that the market may not rely on them as heavily as it used to. Tomorrow’s biggest players are not as adamant on having those names on their instrument’s headstock. They grew up at a time when neither Hendrix nor Page were no longer releasing major albums, and don’t share the same link with those legendary guitars as the previous generations. In fact, the show floor was filled with smaller brands with great new gear that they were eager to promote.

The guitar market is heavily artist-driven, and that edition of the NAMM Show was chock-full of new artist signature models. Two generations of greats and future greats were present and rubbing elbows:

those who made a name for themselves in the nineties and early noughties such as Jack White (with his own Third Man Hardware brand), John Mayer (PRS did not have a booth at the show but they had planned an event, see below), Josh Homme (with a new Peavey signature even though the man was not present in the flesh), Greg Koch and Vernon Reid (two artists with Reverend guitars models), Mick Thomson (and his signature Fishman Fluence pickup) and John Petrucci, who was signing autographs on the Ernie Ball / Music Man booth.

On that same booth, there were also more recent players, including the great Cory Wong (who already had a signature model with Fender but now has another one with Music Man), Tim Henson (who has a signature set of electric and nylon strings) and Fluff (the bearded youtuber also seen with Marshall). From that same generation, we also ran into artists such as Kiki Wong (the new Smashing Pumpkins guitarist), Yvette Young (and her oh-so-trippy signature Walrus pedal), Jacob Collier (and his five-string guitars with Strandberg and Taylor), Mononeon (signature Whammy) and Billy Strings (not in the flesh but two signature Martin acoustics).

New blood

Smaller brands are also starting to make some serious noise. Of course Marshall had a huge booth right in the middle of the show floor, probably thanks to the Chinese capital group that just bought the brand for the lowly sum of 1,1 billion dollars. But brands like Magnatone, Blackstar, Hiwatt and Orange also had many new interesting amps. On the guitar side of things, we were treated to cool new stuff by the likes of Eastman (the very well-made Fullertone line), Taylor (the new Gold Label series, just as easy to play as any Taylor with a more vintage-oriented sound), ESP (many new one-pickup models including the Mick Thompson signature), Vola (that was already celebrating its 10th anniversary) and Ibanez (with new models for Korn’s Head and Munky among others). And as always, there were new pedals as far as the eye could see, including brands that are starting to get some traction (Walrus Audio, Crazy Tube Circuits, Jam Pedals, Rockett Audio, Beetronics) and more obscure names that are no less exciting (Poly Effects, Cunnigham Amps, Silktone).

French and Belgian craftsmanship was also present with luthiers De Leeuw, Loïc LePape and James Trussart (even though James has officially been an American citizen for the last two decades!), Invaders amps (must have been fun to arrange the logistics to bring a full range of amps to the other side of the world), SP Custom pickups and pedals by Kernom (the new Ellipse that specializes in modulation), LNA and Anasounds (with La Grotte, a collaboration with Jack White and Third Man Hardware).

The alternative

Lastly, the 2025 edition of the NAMM Show was a great one thanks to many other events that were going on at the same time without being an official part of NAMM. As usual, many concerts were taking place in parallel with the show, including Jack White who played a gig in Anaheim on Saturday night for a surprise show announced on Tuesday, and the massive birthday bash celebrating 40 years of P.R.S. Guitars at the Anaheim House of Blues, featuring John Mayer, Mark Lettieri, Philip Sayce, Orianthi, Herman Li and the amazing David Grissom.

There were also a couple of trade shows who were doing their own smaller, more boutique version of NAMM with all the brands who didn’t want to be hidden among the many exhibitors of the main show. The Effector Market was already hosting its third edition with brands like Chase Bliss, Empress and many more, while the Wood, Wire & Volts show took place over two days with – amongst many others – Curtis Novak pickups, Bilt guitars and Earthquaker Devices. Live music was also part of the equation with memorable performances by Ariel Posen and Starcrawler (featuring the fantastic Henri Cash and his three-string Gretsch copy).

These events were more upscale and boutique than the regular NAMM Show, and their appeal was less obvious for the average gear-buyer, but they are proof that the main show still attracts enough people to create a whole ecosystem around it. For three days a year, Anaheim really becomes the guitar capital of the world.

Justin Sandercoe trying new pedals at NAMM.

Let’s hope those events keep on happening over the years, since they make the main attraction even more interesting and worthy of making the trip. Each brand that goes through the trouble of bringing over their products in Anaheim to introduce them to the visitors (and not only to a small group of VIPs) is part of the big celebration that the NAMM Show is becoming again after a few gloomy years. Here’s hoping that Fender, P.R.S. and Gibson will play along for the 2026 Show, they have more to gain than they think. In the meantime, if that 2025 Show is anything to go by, we should be in for a very good year in gear!