Given that our guitars are made right in Nashville, Tennessee, launching the Ascender at Summer NAMM 2019 was incredibly special to the Ciari Guitars team. We spent our inspiring weekend in Music City surrounded by music makers, innovators and entertainment technology leaders who are shaping the future of the music industry.
For Ciari Guitars, this particular NAMM event was all about celebrating that our premium travel guitar is available for pre-sale. After years of innovation and engineering, we honored this milestone with an unforgettable launch party packed with musicians and music lovers, exhibited our passion for the Ascender with fellow musicians in Booth #1027, and shared in the spirit of NAMM by contributing demos for Project Music and sponsoring the GAMA Summer NAMM Reception.
We came out to Summer NAMM to bring the Ascender to the music community we love. We left Nashville with a sense of accomplishment and excitement for the future of Ciari Guitars. This is just the beginning!
Launch Party- Only in Nashville
Alley Taps, a Nashville music venue with a speakeasy vibe, was the perfect backdrop for the launch party of the Ascender. It just wouldn’t be a proper guitar launch without a live band… or two, or three!
An epic lineup of musicians came out to support Ciari Guitars, including Justin Johnson, The Revelries, Rockwell Jacobs, Audra McLaughlin (with guitarist Cason Simmons), Tony Sarno and Salina Solomon. We were equal parts starstruck and grateful that these amazing musicians were a part of the Ascender launch party. Everyone had a blast as we celebrated our love for guitars in Music City, U.S.A.
We committed to donating $10 on behalf of each guest to Music Makes Us, a non-profit organization that supports music education in Nashville public schools. We are proud to donate over $1000 to help promote music in schools and bring awareness to the invaluable impact music can make in a young person’s life.
Booth #1027 Action—talkin’, jammin’, foldin’
Our team spent three action-packed days introducing people to the Ascender, our gig-ready, pro-play travel guitar that folds in half to become the perfect personal item for your travels. (It is, in fact, compact enough to slide right underneath the airplane seat in front of you!) While we loved seeing the looks on the faces of NAMM guests, what we loved most was hearing musicians playing our instrument.
We shared at least five demos each day at our booth to showcase the Ascender in action. Nashville-based musicians stopped in to jam and help us show off the soulful sound of a premium travel guitar that was made to be played anywhere and everywhere.
The consensus? The Ascender looks and feels like a dream guitar, and it plays like one, too. Our booth at Summer NAMM was full of pure, bright electric guitar sound.
We were thrilled to have been interviewed by reputable publications like Guitar World (click here for the article) and Premier Guitar (view the awesome video here), who asked great questions in about the quality and convenience of The Ascender and learned about the story behind Ciari Guitars.
NAMM Contributions—Ciari Guitars, friction and the music community.
As we push forward in our own journey, an event like Summer NAMM is the perfect opportunity for Ciari Guitars to support other members of the music community. As an alumni of NEC, we provided demos for Project Music, a company focused on helping music-centric startups thrive. We were also proud to sponsor the GAMA Summer NAMM reception, honoring John Hall of Hall & Oates.
We were blown away when Shep Hyken used The Ascender as an example of convenience during his incredibly compelling NAMM U presentation, The Customer Experience Revolution. On his list is strategies for creating a better customer experience, #7 was about convenience principles, where our CEO & Founder Jonathan Spangler was quoted on his theory on reducing friction.
Hyken chose to highlight the remarkable convenience of the Ascender, and how our premium travel guitar illustrates the principles of convenience, invention and innovation. Sitting in the audience as a renown thought leader advocated for the engineering and design behind the Ascender was a magical moment for our team. We are inspired to make customer service just as important as our innovation and look forward to making all of our Ciari owners feel like the rockstars they are. Click here to watch a short clip of the presentation.
Finally, Jonathan Spangler spoke on a panel titled Launching Your Technology Startup for the Music Industry, powered by the Nashville Entrepreneur Center. Jonathan was in his element discussing the crossroads of tech entrepreneurship and music, two subjects that are driving forces behind Ciari Guitars.
To launch the Ascender in Nashville, Tennessee was a dream come true. We’re invigorated by the music-making, camaraderie and innovation that fuels NAMM and we are proud to bring the Ascender, a premium travel guitar, to the music industry.