flatbaroque Posted October 17, 2012 Posted October 17, 2012 Small beer compared to your Guitar Centers et al I suppose...but biggest chain over here..25 stores and over 600 staff... closing next month.Allans Billy Hyde..all musical instruments, mainly guitars and drums. There has been liquidation sales but I think all the good stuff must have been squirreled away somewhere by the liquidators. Bit sad really as Allans has been in existence since 1850. But the way of the storefront retail world all over.
EuroAussie Posted October 17, 2012 Posted October 17, 2012 Yeah, I read this but saw it coming. I visited the Billy Hyde store in Adelaide when I was last back 12 months ago and it was an absolute dump. But I do remember their glory days in the 80's and 90's when they were a really all round music shop. Luckily there are several very good guitar shops in Adelaide which I will be frequenting when back shortly over Xmas.
fortyearspickn Posted October 17, 2012 Posted October 17, 2012 Biggest fish in small pond In Waco went under a few years ago. They attempted to compete by carrying a large inventory. Didn't work. A store here in San Antonio that was most only acoustics (Martin, Taylor, Takemine, etc and lessons) went belly up a couple of months ago. The largest (not counting G.C.) is scaling back on their inventory ( w 2 locations). They carry a wide range of instruments, acoustics is their forte, and they have a good luthier. Although not PC, the Blame Game is my way of trying to understand why bad things happen to good people. In this case - the biggest obvious culprit is the virtual store on the Internet. Ironically, we can come here to get advice we use to get at the local guitar store. Back before The British Invasion! ;). But, the economy is a strong second, followed by couch potato coma - inducing computer games.
Hairy Dave Posted October 17, 2012 Posted October 17, 2012 Sad to hear that FB, especially for the many hundreds of employees that will be made redundant. On a happier note here, Dawsons (a UK music chain) is expanding in Northern Ireland with a store to open in Belfast soon.
blindboygrunt Posted October 17, 2012 Posted October 17, 2012 Sad to hear that FB, especially for the many hundreds of employees that will be made redundant. On a happier note here, Dawsons (a UK music chain) is expanding in Northern Ireland with a store to open in Belfast soon. news to me that dave !! great , when n where ?
Hairy Dave Posted October 17, 2012 Posted October 17, 2012 Hi BBG, they're opening in the old Marcus Music store before Christmas. Here's an article from the Business Telegraph: Dawsons Belfast
ParlourMan Posted October 17, 2012 Posted October 17, 2012 The biggest obvious culprit is the virtual store on the Internet. Ironically, we can come here to get advice we use to get at the local guitar store. Back before The British Invasion! ;). Nobody wants or needs a business lesson, but it's the old adage 'adapt or die' far too many musical instrument businesses rested on their laurels while the eBusiness sectors took their business away piece by piece. Old world shopping experiences might be quite comforting for a certain sector of society, but the new consumer wants trust, price, service, warranty. In fact most SME's in any sector touching retailer or supply are evaluated on web business as much as physical presence when they go looking for investment in recent years. The trend for no physical presence at all shows no signs of slowing either, most often referred to as the Amazon model. But, the economy is a strong second, followed by couch potato coma - inducing computer games. Kids nowadays can gain celebrity status easier than investing years of time & money in instruments, from reality tv, to gobby media bloggers the quick route is what people want. When you couple that with there being vastly reduced sums of money involved, piracy, crippling contracts and an increase in disposable manufactured chart fodder dominating commercial radio, there may be a lack of incentive. When you look at the live music scene compared to the DJ scene almost anywhere you see plenty kids move into the DJ'ing realm. They can get gigs DJ'ing far more easily and with the advent of stuff like Ableton and other DAWs running on reasonable desktop / laptop PC's far more incentive for the bedroom composers to blossom than 4-5 kids with real drums & guitars. All that before you even factor in gaming and the mind-boggling fact that there are now professional gamers....
fortyearspickn Posted October 18, 2012 Posted October 18, 2012 My son bought a computer game which promised to teach you how to play guitar. He tried, it was a lame, dishonest product - and now he'll probably never try to learn, I think in part because, although he was sincerely interested, the DVD made him feel inadequate. Guitar Hero provides instant gratification. Soon, drones will replace jet fighters. Top Gun will be replaced by Bubble Gum!
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