Positive Direction Demonstrates Kawai’s Strength at Frankfurt Musikmesse 2016 !

Positive Direction Demonstrates Kawai’s Strength at Frankfurt Musikmesse 2016 !

Established in 1980, Frankfurt Musikmesse is a four day musical instrument exhibition hosted in the German city of Frankfurt. The annual event is regarded as one of the leading musical industry trade fairs, with over 1100 exhibitors from all corners of the globe, and crowds regularly exceeding 64,000 visitors. 

This year’s exhibition was held from the 7th-10th of April, with different product groups distributed throughout eight large halls. The Kawai exhibition area was prominently located in the ‘Classic meets Keys’ hall, with an impressive, open-plan space spanning approximately 360 m². A full selection of grand, upright, and digital pianos were exhibited, allowing visitors to play test a wide range of Kawai instruments at their leisure. Product highlights at this year’s show included the latest GL Series grand pianos (covered in Kawai News #56), K Series upright pianos with AnyTimeX2 features, and the brand new Classic Series CS11 and CS8 luxury digital pianos. In addition, the Kawai space also incorporated two purpose-built soundproof rooms – one housing Shigeru Kawai SK-6 and SK-3 grand pianos, the other a special Kawai-Onyko collaboration exhibit, which is covered in greater detail on the following page. 

The sound of ‘Messe’ is undoubtedly one of the exhibition’s defining characteristics, with artist performances and product demonstrations, and show visitors sampling the latest musical instruments. In order to provide a more comfortable environment for company representatives to meet with dealers, this year’s Musikmesse introduced an additional ‘Business meets Business’ hall, away from the hustle and bustle of the main show areas.

Kawai’s spacious business centre (216 m²) provided a quiet, relaxing location for guests to meet, catchup, and discuss business over complementary food and drink. In addition to private meeting rooms, the area also featured two additional 16 m² soundproof rooms, allowing new products and prototypes to be tested and checked without disturbing others. Speaking after the exhibition, Kawai Europe’s Senior Product Manager, Michael Kunz, responsible for the planning and design of Kawai’s booth, highlighted the success of the separate business area: “The new Kawai booth concept, with separate B2C and B2B areas, demonstrated to the market that Kawai is a strong, trustworthy brand to work with in the future. Dealers and customers highly appreciated our confident direction at Musikmesse, which has contributed to a positive sales result.” While the Musikmesse exhibition may only last for four days, preparation before and after the event requires weeks and months of careful planning. So, as April draws to a close, Kawai Japan would like to thank all of the men and women at Kawai Europe for their tireless efforts in ensuring that the company’s presence at Frankfurt was a great success. We shall look forward to greeting you all again in 2017! 

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