2006 Music Inc. Store Design Annual

Scott Silver of Chicago
Music Exchange
Photo by Karen Solem
STANDING
OUT
reat store design delivers the “wow”
factor, but in the case of the following music product retailers, it’s also
functional. Facades pop from the
street as free advertising. Self-created displays consolidate floor
space. High ceilings awe shoppers
while making room on the wall for
more SKUs. These four dealers
recently opened new stores to give
their customers the best possible
shopping experience and to stay competitive in a superficial retail world. Look to
these walk-throughs for ideas and inspiration.
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BY ZACH PHILLIPS
CHICAGO MUSIC
EXCHANGE
Wrigley Field in Chicago’s hip Lakeview
neighborhood. And then there’s the product itself, an enviable selection of the most
beautiful and sought-after vintage Gibsons
and Fenders, to name a few.
Silver opened his new location in
November 2005 after 14 years at another
store down the street. The building required
a gut rehab, a project that took a full year
cott Silver, owner of Chicago Music
Exchange, likens the vibe of his store
to somebody’s home. And while the shop’s
new location is all plush and comfort, a
more apt comparison might be made to the
building’s previous tenant, an art gallery.
Framed instruments, meticulous lighting
and custom-built adornments fill the
16,000-square-foot store, a quick stroll from
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and cost “way over budget because we
wanted to do it right,” Silver said with a
laugh. Now, after all this time in business,
he finally feels like he has a store deserving
of his customer base. (Tom Petty and Eddie
Vedder are both shoppers.)
“We’ve had a tremendous response from
our longtime customers and all of our new
ones,” Silver said. “Sales are way up.”
THE FRONT
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Keeping in the spirit of the building’s previous inhabitant, Chicago Music
Exchange’s facade looks like a gallery, or
a high-end department store. Floor-toceiling windows and slate tiles breathe
sophistication and give passersby a
view of the store’s insides, a mix of
roughly 70-percent vintage and 30percent new guitars and amps.
DISPLAYS
A pine cabinet in front houses books, T-shirts
and collectibles. The 17-foot-long,
red oak pedal display case was
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custom-built for Chicago Music
Exchange. Behind it stands a wall
of more accessories with a ladder
to reach higher goods. None of
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the store’s gear displays are the
standard, manufacturer-supplied
fare. Instead, creativity reigns (see
amp display to the left).
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FIRST LOOK
After passing through a vestibule with
Italian marble floors, visitors are awed by
a mammoth showroom. An accessories
cabinet, wall and counter sit to the immediate left. Sofas, chairs and a coffee table
offer a homey vibe that’s offset by the hip
industrial look of exposed piping in the
ceiling. The floors are custom hardwood.
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ACOUSTIC ROOM
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The giant acoustic room begins with a pair of 10-foot doors.
“I had those custom-made because I wanted that Alice in
Wonderland feel,” Silver said. The doors and adjacent window feature half-inch-thick glass. “When you’re in the
acoustic guitar room, you cannot hear outside,” he added.
Vintage instruments adorn the more than 1,000-squarefoot room, and a framed display features “any cool custom-shop guitar that’s unique and outstanding.” Three
demo spaces are currently in construction.
DEMO ROOMS
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Once the acoustic room demo spaces are complete, Chicago Music
Exchange will have a total of six demo rooms. They serve an important function: Customers must go into a room to plug in. This helps
maintain the sanctity of the store (i.e. no blaring young shredders),
and unlike many bare music retail demo rooms, these are stocked
to eye level with amps from the likes of Marshall, Hiwatt, Orange
and Ampeg.
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SLATWALL
& LIGHTING
Minimal use of slatwall further boosts the gallery feel.
“All the slatwall you see in this place is more than I
wanted, but I had to be realistic,” Silver said. “I try to
blend it in so you don’t see it.” Chicago Music
Exchange’s lighting is halogen track, strategically
aimed. “Kind of the less-is-more deal,” Silver said.
He had the lighting tweaked to hide the screws.
MUSICIAN’S HANG
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Chicago Music Exchange also
delivers musical culture. Classic
album covers and posters are
framed throughout. A baby
grand piano is on standby for
after-hours jam sessions.
And, again, there are plenty
of places to sit among the
couches and chairs.
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BY CHARLES FULLER
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PROSSER PIANO
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n the world of store design, necessity
breeds construction as much as invention.
After 10 years in the Coachella Valley,
Kevin Prosser, owner of Prosser Piano – The
Steinway Gallery, had developed a few
needs. In order to best serve the area — primarily a golf-course-laden getaway — he
needed more space and up-to-date amenities.
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So, about three years ago, Prosser bought
land in Rancho Mirage, two-and-a-half miles
from his previous space in Palm Desert.
It took about that long to complete the
project. Through local referrals, Prosser
found a talented designer, who sketched out
the building. Getting it built required a
structural engineer, some compromise and
an “OK” from a coterie of local committees.
(Rancho Mirage is protective of its look.)
Prosser admitted he could have pushed
it through faster had he hired someone
familiar with the city, but that’s all hindsight. Instead, he’s pumped about 5,000
extra square feet of useable space, new technology and a striking Steinway Gallery.
EXTERIOR
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Prosser had to be mindful of his neighbor’s sight line when designing the front
of his 9,000-square-foot store. The building’s profile, as a result, suggests the
shape of a grand piano (without overdoing it as to make it unsellable to somebody else). It slopes from 18-foot ceil1
ings in front to 12-foot ceilings in back.
This makes for strong acoustics, but it
also allows plenty of desert-quality nat2
ural light to come through the tall win4
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dows that line the front.
The store’s sign has a slick monument look, but more important, it brands the store as both “Prosser Piano” and
“The Steinway Gallery,” which attracts a more diverse set of customers.
MAIN SHOWFLOOR
Through the front door, a slate entryway gives way to carpet, over which
Prosser has organized a sea of grand
pianos that greet each customer as
they walk in — they’re his nonSteinways. The flatscreen television
in the back is part of a store-wide,
integrated multimedia system.
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TELEVISION
Toward the back of the main showfloor, Prosser built the pinnacle of his multimedia system and the ultimate demo area. It’s a 110-inch screen hooked up to a 7.1
surround sound system designed to show off player and digital pianos. “I think a
lot of stores say things like, ‘Can you imagine what this could sound like through
your home theater system?’”
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Prosser said. “I’m not sure people really can, so we wanted to
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provide an environment where
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they can actually hear what a
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player piano could sound like.”
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MUSIC HALL
Prosser Music Hall takes up an otherwise “inexpensive” retail space (the back of the building) and features a slightly elevated wood stage and a
customizable seating area.
Although it can hold 120–125 people, events don’t
always call for that many, so the folding chairs provide
an opportunity to customize the setup as necessary.
Prosser has held jazz concerts, classical concerts, organ
concerts and
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student recitals.
It’s a fail-safe
way to boost
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store traffic and
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reputation.
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STEINWAY GALLERY
Prosser’s Steinway & Sons Gallery could well be his favorite space in the building.
Because of Steinway’s importance in not only the world of piano, but also the success
of the store, Prosser wanted nothing short of magic.
Prosser called the idea behind the room “billboarding.” “It’s something I learned
about years ago, and Starbucks may be one of the best examples of [how to use it],”
he said. “Some Starbucks, as you walk in, tell you their coffee story through billboardsize pictures on the walls. My goal was to do the same in the Gallery.
“We talk about hand-built pianos, and those pictures show what that really means;
to see someone standing at a work bench working on a piano. We say that every piano
takes a year, and people kind of get it [when they see this].”
The story goes further than manufacturing. One display showcases 24 of the hundreds of artists who endorse or play Steinways, and a piano-shaped bookcase holds
Steinway books and literature that patrons can enjoy while browsing the room. There’s
also a flatscreen TV that plays billboard-enhancing DVDs about the company.
After a slate lead-in, the floor turns to dark hardwood, a contrast to the rest of the
store and an acoustic enhancer given the ceiling is lower here than the main showfloor.
The walls frame the story, and the pianos speak for themselves. And although
Prosser cross merchandises music lamps and benches with pianos all throughout the
store, he only uses the highest quality models in the Steinway Gallery.
In putting the room together, Steinway was a huge boon. “Steinway did some work
for us, and they were terrific,” Prosser
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said. “Leo Spellman — he runs their
marketing department — was a delight
to work with. He got me the right size
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and quality photos, so that we could
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reprint them on this large scale.”
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BY SARA FARR
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BEACOCK MUSIC
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elcome to the Toys “R” Us of music
product retail: Beacock Music. To
create the total retail experience, store owners Russ and Gayle Beacock provide a million different toys for customers to play
with. There’s more horns, more keys, more
lesson rooms. It’s the biggest music store
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there is! Well, in Vancouver, Wash., at least.
When the brother-and-sister team
decided to expand their store, they went all
out — and made Geoffrey the Giraffe look
like a dwarf. With help from retail design
consultant Glen Ingles, the Beacocks built
a 20,000-square-foot wonderland for every
kind of shopper, from the mom looking to
relax in a café while her son takes lessons
to the gearhead looking for the latest in
keyboard technology to the harried guitarist who just wants a new set of strings.
For shoppers and families, it’s the
Beacock time of year.
B&O DISPLAYS
Many music stores keep their band and orchestra
section closed off from the public. The Beacocks
thought it would be a better experience for students
and parents, as well as concert musicians, if it were
out in the open. As Russ put it, there’s no instrument
you can’t walk up to and touch: “[People] say, ‘Wow,
look at all the inventory. Look at all the horns. Let’s
go check it out.’” And hardly any of it gets damaged.
EXTERIOR
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Because they are located alongside lots of big-box
chains, the Beacocks wanted to incorporate a local flavor into their store’s exterior. So they painted their
cement tilt-up in a softer shade — Russ calls it “latte”
— and added timber beams and a sloping, low-slung
roof that calls to mind ski lodges and snow bunnies.
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PRINT MUSIC
Don’t tell Barnes & Noble or Borders, but music stores can learn
a lot about merchandising print music from bookstores and local
libraries. “We’ve stolen ideas from them as much as possible,”
Russ said with a laugh. Beacock
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Music’s print music display is basically broken up into two areas. An
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island in the center of the area contains new, popular music titles and
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new books, and a “library” section
contains instructional piano meth2
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ods and other titles, all labeled and
divided. The department also fea1
tures a range of DVDs.
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A LITTLE LATTE
For parents waiting on children, Russ and Gayle have coffee, snacks, smoothies, Wi-Fi and
shopping. Beacock’s coffee store isn’t “paying all the bills,” Russ said, but “people comment daily that it’s fun to come in here.” Also of interest to this group, a “gift area” near
the print music department contains everything from musical
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jewelry to candles to “stuff that looks like it should be in Pier
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1 Imports,” said Russ. He attributed much of the store’s outof-the-box approach to merchandising to the fact that there
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are women involved in the company’s decision-making
processes. “We’ve got over 1,000 people coming in here each
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week, and we want them downstairs checking things out and
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looking around rather than sitting in a chair in a hallway read1
ing a two-month-old magazine.”
ONE-STOP-SHOP
Speaking of magazines, the Beacocks stock a large
selection of periodicals for musicians, from Modern
Drummer to Guitar Player to Sound on Sound, merchandised much like any other store. “We don’t want
to send anyone to a Borders or a Barnes & Noble,”
Russ said. “And it just makes more fun to come in.”
He added that he sees people come in just to buy a
magazine, but they wind up taking a loop around the
store to see what’s new in stock. “And that’s exactly
what we’re dying to have them do,” he said.
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LESSON LEARNED
Education has been a large part of Beacock Music
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since it was founded by Russ and Gayle’s parents. So
when they designed the new location, they devoted
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the entire second floor to lesson studios and performance spaces. Currently, there are 18 private stu2
dios, a larger classroom and an 80-person
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performance room with a built-in stage. When cus1
tomers and students ascend the staircase, they are
immediately greeted in a receiving area manned by the store’s two full-time
music education coordinators. Younger children have their own coloring table.
GET IN, GET OUT
What about the customer wanting to zip in for a set of strings? Russ and Gayle
have made it so strings are one of the first things you see when you walk in
the door — the entire checkout island has racks of
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strings right under the counter, fully accessible to
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customers. “In the old days, strings were always
behind the counter,” Russ said. “We designed our
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string display so that you could come in, go where
you need to go, take a 360-degree look around the
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store, and get out.” It’s a theme carried throughout
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each division; from B&O to guitars, each has its own
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“island of tranquility” with basic accessories.
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INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC
hile Guitar Center has gelled its look,
Instrumental Music’s Bryan McCann
isn’t sure it’s a good idea to copy their vibe.
At least not for his store.
Instrumental Music carries a wide selection of high-end SKUs, and its tenor is the
antithesis of kids banging on Martin D45s.
But even if the store looks different, it can’t
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look like there’s been a discrepancy of effort.
“Design wise, the message you should
send is not necessarily that [you’re] cutting
edge,” he said. “It’s just a level of retail competency that comes across.”
McCann took the competency test when
he relocated his Ventura, Calif., location in
2005. For one, he updated his color scheme
(and used slatwall throughout the main
showfloor to allow for the cheapest future
redesign: a fresh paint job). He also built two
high-end guitar rooms to showcase the gear
that separates him from the competition.
The bill was reasonable, if you excuse
the fact that McCann bought the building;
he did most of the work himself.
ACOUSTIC ROOM
The bright spot of Instrumental Music’s 7,500-square-foot store is a roughly 125-square-foot
high-end acoustic room. It embodies Instrumental’s anti-chain environment, with a lock on the
door and a range of SKUs. To get in, you don’t have to be a good player — just ask the sales
associate. This does help control traffic, but more importantly, it opens up a dialogue.
Again, McCann did most of the work. He bought rough-sawn cedar planks from Home Depot
and lined the tall walls — no drop ceiling in here — using a pneumatic nail gun. “The cedar
enlivens the senses,” McCann said. “We used the rough wood because it’s a contrast to the
guitars, which are typically high-gloss. Also, cedar is very aromatic so you walk into the room
and it smells like wood.” Keeping the contrast theme, McCann built a special display case that
he lined with green velour, the color and texture of which also complements shiny wood.
He has cross merchandised the guitars with high-end cases, acoustic amps and pedals.
ENTRYWAY
McCann originally tried to convince a tile guy to install the slate
in the front of his store, but apparently they’re too used to working at ground level.
Using a tall lift could be a barrier from some looking to modernize the front of their store, but for $3 a tile plus mortar,
McCann improved the bland facade of the building. Right from
the get-go, customers see class.
ELECTRICS
On the other side of the store, Instrumental Music’s electric guitar
room is the yin to the acoustic room’s yang. Although the wall
material (slatwall) has less character than rough cedar, McCann
still built the ambiance through contrast; he used dark to enliven
the bright guitar finishes. “If you went with that color throughout
the entire store, it would be like walking in a cave,” he said. “But
in a room like that, it makes the instruments really pop.” He also
used expensive halogen lighting, a world of difference from bare
florescent tubes. The cross-merchandising is the same idea as
the acoustic room.
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