IHS 56: Lessons from our second conference
Vivian and I are taking it easy this week, coming off the high (literally, 5000 feet elevation!) of attending the International Horn Symposium (IHS) in Fort Collins, Colorado. This was our second in-person event and our first outside of Canada as the Éditions Plamondon team.
In my experience, the existing resources for exhibiting at trade shows are ill-suited for music conferences. Most are geared towards Business-to-Business (B2B) models or are meant for full-time salespeople with innovative new products meant for a general audience. As an exhibitor at a music conference, I feel that we have more in common with Etsy sellers; working part-time selling a niche product, this is just a piece of the income pie. If you’re considering bringing your project or company to a music conference, there is truly no template that you can follow, but I hope this will be of a little help to you.
I’d imagine that for symposium veterans, attending an event is pretty straightforward: sign up, pay the registration fee, and show up on the first day with your box of products ready to go. This is not yet the case for us; in the lead-up to IHS 56, Vivian and I congregated in Edmonton for the month of July and rented a dedicated office space. We focused all our efforts towards improving the table presentation, finalising some new products, printing several boxes of stock, and honing our sales pitch. One of our main goals at the conference was to talk with as many exhibitors as possible and learn (steal?) as much information as we could.
FORT COLLINS, COLORADO: Vivian at the ép table at IHS 56.
The big question: is it profitable?
Short answer: almost certainly not. But don’t click off yet! There are reasons beyond simple financial gain that might still make it worth your while.
I suspect that music conferences/symposia are most successful for instrument manufacturers, particularly boutique makers who create from their garage or basement studio. Word of mouth is especially important for instrument sales, and new instrument makers spend years building their reputation. Appearing at an event as an exhibitor allows a high concentration of people in the field to meet you, learn your name and your brand, and most importantly, try your product.
I spoke with David Smalley of Colorado Hornworks, who very recently left his job as a brass repair technician to pursue horn-making full-time. It was also his second symposium after Montréal 2023, and he brought two horns to the symposium: A completed product, putting his best foot forward, and an “in-progress” horn, which was about 90% done. He encouraged everyone that passed by to try both horns and tell him their thoughts, and then each evening, he would make slight tweaks to the “in-progress” horn. With this reciprocal approach, he was able to generate buzz with his high-quality product while also gathering real-time feedback about his product.
On the other hand, I heard through the grapevine that Dan Vidican of Lukas Horns was able to sell his entire stock of 5 horns, certainly netting him a large chunk of his revenue for this fiscal year. He began his shop over a decade ago, so he’s had plenty of time to build his reputation. Consider that he too once had to attend his first-ever symposium!
We were fortunate to receive a grant from the Québec-based Fondation des artistes for our first appearance at IHS Montréal in 2023, which allowed us to break even. This grant was a godsend, since we had several start-up costs. Among them were a custom floor-standing banner, custom tablecloths, our first point-of-sale device, branded stickers, and our first stack of business cards. Even small expenses like cardboard magazine files and business card holders really added up.
Taking into account travel costs, accommodations, meals, and the symposium registration fee, it’s not likely you’ll make a large profit, at least not at your first symposium. Thankfully, alongside our publications, the core of Éditions Plamondon is our high-quality music preparation services. Being there in-person gives us the opportunity to network and make our case about why high-quality music engraving is so important. In Montréal, we handed out dozens of business cards, which led to a handful of arranging and engraving projects in the following months.
MONTRÉAL, QUÉBEC: Our first symposium appearance at IHS 55 in July 2023.
✨Exposure✨
Name/brand recognition is probably the primary benefit to attending conferences as an exhibitor. It is a clear way to establish yourself within a niche and build trust in your brand or widen the reach of your project. I’ve already talked about how instrument makers can do this, but it’s worth touching on for non-instrument makers.
We were pleased to be stationed in an exhibitor hall this year with a few familiar faces. Next to us was our friend and colleague Michael Mikulka, who was attending his third IHS Conference as an exhibitor. Within the already tight niche of the French horn community, Michael is successfully carving out a niche-within-a-niche. Mikulka Music is focused on promoting extended techniques such as multiphonics and microtonality, and his compositions provide an excellent entry point for newcomers. His highly accessible method book for multiphonics on horn is the only one of its kind (that I’m aware of), and I overheard more than one attendee say some variation of “hey, that’s the multiphonics guy!” when they saw his table.
FORT COLLINS, COLORADO: At the Mikulka Music table with the multiphonics guy himself, Michael Mikulka.
We were also next to Faust Music, the publishing company of composer & hornist Randall Faust, run with the assistance of his wife Sharon. Randall is well-loved in the community, and their presence has been a staple of brass events for decades. Their booth spanned five (!!) tables and featured several well-known composers and arrangers including himself. Vivian and I learned a lot just by watching their sales pitch; welcome people the instant they walk into the room, hand them a brochure, then tactfully figure out what type of music they're looking for and direct them towards some options that might suit them. As experienced vendors, they already had a great rapport with many of the attendees. We learned to be proactive with introducing our brand, something that doesn’t really come naturally to me.
I also met Sara McClure of Legacy Horn Experience, based out of Kansas City, Missouri. They are a brand new two-pronged company focused on specialty horn mouthpieces and music publications, with a distinct advantage: they are backed by horn legend Martin Hackleman. Having recently retired after a distinguished career as a world-class performer and teacher, Hackleman is the ambassador for their products and maintains considerable good-will and many connections in the horn community. This has allowed the Legacy team to make a very strong showing at their very first IHS, with exciting new mouthpieces available for trial as well as an already impressive catalogue of existing music from the past couple decades. Before the symposium, few had heard of Legacy Horn Experience, but everyone knew Martin Hackleman, so I’m sure that creating the brand association was an essential piece of their presence at the symposium. I think the lesson here is: if you’re planning to start a business, reach out to people in your network! Musicians are an enterprising bunch, and you may be surprised at who may join your team.
Swag
People love free swag! Conferences are the ideal opportunity to hand out merchandise that features your brand, which will help you make your mark and spark conversations with other people at the conference. Building on last summer, we had a three-part approach this year:
1. Offer a brochure which details all of our available products.
EDMONTON, ALBERTA: Vivian created these adorable brochures that look like miniature editions of our scores.
Vivian created these adorable brochures that look like miniature editions of our scores, containing details on every piece we brought to IHS 56 and their difficulty, length and price. This was an improvement from our previous appearance, and I would highly recommend bringing some if you have more than 3 or 4 products on your table. They help combat the sensory overload that attendees experience when walking into an exhibit hall filled with companies they maybe haven’t heard of.
Don’t ask if they want a brochure; simply greet passersby and hand them one directly. Nearly everyone will appreciate the gesture, and they’re well within their rights to refuse or leave it on the table if they don’t want it. In our experience, most people take one and bring it back to their hotels with them. A few attendees even returned to our table later in the week, having found something of interest in our brochure during their downtime.
See if you can find out a rough number of registered attendees, and be sure to bring at least half that number of brochures. It is far, far more economical to print too many brochures in-house than it is to run out and need to print more on-site (we learned this the hard way!).
2. Many people were not interested in purchasing sheet music, but we caught their eye with our bespoke stickers. These were for sale at $3 each, or four stickers for $10.
FORT COLLINS, COLORADO: Corrie the beaver and the Fort Collins hiker stickers were designed by our friends Erin and Nicole at Lovesick Design Studio.
This was a strategy we developed for IHS 55 in Montréal to help us stand out among other exhibitors who had a larger selection of products. We created bespoke stickers that would serve as a secondary revenue stream and draw in new customers to our table.
Last year, we brought six designs related to Montréal/Canada. They were a hit, featuring beloved local symbols like the Métro and the St. Viateur Bagel logos, although we perhaps printed too many of them. This year was trickier since we weren’t in on the local culture of Fort Collins, so we tried more of a “quality over quantity approach”; we brought only two Fort Collins/Colorado designs, and a more mass-appeal beaver mascot design (Corrie!!). I think this was a better approach, and we made a tidy profit from sticker sales this year. Rest assured that future symposia will be treated to Corrie’s adorable face.
3. We also had free ép logo stickers and our business cards available; we directly offered these attendees who showed particular interest in our table.
Having business cards available is a must! We spoke to so many people who were interested in what we were doing and wanted the opportunity to keep in touch. I’m not yet convinced of the value of a business card with QR codes on them, though - I don’t think I saw a single person scanning a QR code the entire week.
We also had to emphasise that the stickers with our logo on them are free. Although they were completely separate from the paid stickers, it’s possible many assumed that our logo stickers were included in the stack of paid stickers. We’ll have to remedy this somehow for future conferences, since we want people to take them and plaster them on their belongings in the interest of brand recognition!
FORT COLLINS, COLORADO: Some great free swag at the table of Mainz-based horn maker Gebrüder Alexander.
A few of our mistakes that you should avoid
eepy creepy
Always read the reviews for hotels! In an effort to save some money, I rented the cheapest hotel I could find in Billings, MT as the overnight stop of our road trip. We didn’t need amenities, just a place to sleep the night, and I’ve stayed in sketchy hostels before. I think I literally said “what’s the worst that could happen?” out loud to Vivian at one point.
The condition of the building was mortifying. I won’t belabour the point with detailed depictions of the illicit activities we could see and hear around us and the dismal state of the rooms, so I will simply say that it was… not ideal. It’s possible the standard of care in Montana is lower than in Canada, I’m not really sure, but it was a valuable lesson nonetheless. Do your research!
When your POS is a POS
I found conflicting accounts online, but I can now 100% confirm that in 2024, Square Point-of-Sale (POS) systems are country-specific. You will not be able to use an American-bought Square Reader in Canada nor vice-versa. A panic ensued when we discovered this fact mere minutes before opening on the first day - our POS wouldn’t accept payments in the United States from any credit card, including Canadian ones.
If you’re planning to attend a symposium in a different country, you should have a backup plan in case your POS system doesn’t work. Venmo is not a good option because it is an American-exclusive app that requires you to have a USA phone number. I understand many American exhibitors at the Montréal conference used PayPal, which is easy to set up but is a bit clunky on the customer side; you have to send them a “money request,” which they then complete on their phone through their e-mail or Paypal app. My backup plan was to use the Shopify POS app which populated the products from my Shopify storefront, which worked just fine.
iPad Kids
A reality that every publisher needs to reckon with is the rise of digital tablets and demand for digital sheet music. More musicians than ever will not even consider purchasing paper sheet music, preferring to bring their entire libraries with them on an iPad or similar device. The benefits of reading from a screen are obvious, especially when paired with a page-turning pedal. I still personally like to use printed sheet music, since playing my instrument remains one of my few daily tasks that doesn’t involve staring at a screen. As a seller, I think there’s tremendous value in offering both.
Most of the other publishers were offering at least a portion of their catalogue in digital format alongside printed publications, but I would go a step further and advocate making that explicitly clear on your table with a small sign. We didn’t have such a sign this year, and it’s hard to say how many potential customers passed us by because they knew they didn’t have space in their luggage for a hefty stack of sheet music.
Some exhibitors offered only digital editions, though I’m not sure this is the way to go. It’s like receiving an MP3 download from Bandcamp versus receiving an actual CD copy of an album; the feeling of receiving a PDF file, which can be easily copied and distributed, simply doesn’t compare to actually leafing through a thoughtfully crafted booklet.
Keeping up with the Cor-dashians
Ultimately, the reason people attend a conference or trade show is to stay current with the state of their industry. As a horn player myself, attending IHS feels like a win-win, allowing me to hear world-class horn players and observe trends in the craft. It’s also a chance to adjust strategy based on the needs and desires of the community. The information you get when someone is very excited about buying your products is just as valuable as when someone walks away without purchasing anything.
We’re not certain whether we’ll attend IHS again next year - we might try something different in 2025, but it’s too early to say right now. With the launch of our Slava Ukraini series a few months ago, much of my energy and obsession has been wrapped up in music for woodwinds, so we’re considering attending a woodwind-focused symposium next year instead. In any case, with Vivian and I heading back to our respective opposite sides of the Pacific ocean, I’m already looking forward to our next in-person collaboration.
FORT COLLINS, COLORADO: Cheers to another great year!