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uacirade Review
Published Monthly
FEDERATED BUSINESS PUBLICATIONS, INC.
420 Lexington Are.
New York
Music
Industry
Serving
the Entire
July, 1930
Vol. 89
No. 7
Single CopiM
Twenty Cenu
Annual Subscription
Two Dollar*
After
the Conventions
What?
T
HE conventions of the National Music Industries for 1930 are of
the past, whether simply as a matter of record or as a matter of
definite accomplishment it remains for the members of the several
branches of the industry to determine for themselves. Certainly the
meetings were productive of enough sound thought and suggestions to
revive a spirit of optimism and to point the way to a reawakening of
the trade, but it will require something more than mere words to develop
into accomplishment those thoughts and suggestions.
T
AKING everything into consideration it appears remarkable to the
onlooker that the various trade bodies could have functioned so
well and accomplished so much during a fiscal year that was far
from good financially and gave the trade members so little time and
opportunity for Association efforts. That things were done reflects to
the credit of the men who were willing to make personal sacrifices for
the benefit of the industry at large.
• •••
T
HE business sessions were largely of the open forum nature and
were better attended than many sessions at previous conventions
where the registration was much heavier. The discussions were
serious and to the point. Manufacturers and dealers gave freely of their
successful experiences in order that their contemporaries in the trade
might profit by them. There was, above all, a spirit of determination
not only to make the best of a confusing situation, but to do everything
possible to bring back the music business to its former position.
T
HERE was talk before the convention that the Music Industries
Chamber of Commerce as well as several constituent organizations
were through because of financial handicaps and certainly the
financial picture, as presented at the convention, was anything but
encouraging. Yet these very men who have troubles of their own
pledged themselves to meet a new budget, curtailed, naturally, but never-
theless substantial. They voted to carry on the promotion work that
is so essential for every department of the industry. In the piano trade
they agreed to a doubling of the cost of the combination stamp; in the
musical instruments and accessories division they not only voted to carry
on the promotion work but to broaden its scope, and in the musical
merchandise field they completed plans for the reorganization of the
Association and the raising of substantial funds on a pro rata basis for
promotion effort during the year. And so it went.
NYONE who may have felt that the music trade was licked or,
as the expression goes, was "taking it lying down," would have
had an awakening at the New York convention. The talk was
not how poor conditions are or have been, but rather what could be
done to improve them in the future and was designed to bring forth
those suggestions that were soundest and most practical.
A
A
S was said in the beginning, the conventions are past. If what
was said and planned in the meeting halls is to be forgotten
until the next annual meetings, then the time spent there has
been wasted. The Association work for the year has been laid out.
What is the trade as a whole going to do about it?