Had a visit on Friday from an area manager of a major distributor - got talking about trade, etc and the beginners starter pack market came up - He quoted they are down by 75% over the last 5 previous years - Larger stores and chains that would buy 200 or 100 packs are buying 50 or 25 - independents who purchased 10 are buying 2/3/4
ditto for the 1/2 3/4 and 4/4 classical packs and even the acoustic/dreadnought starter packs are down
He did admit that non branded lines via E-bay/Amazon have had an impact - but this market is seriously down on previous years and youngsters just don't have the same interest as before
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Actually I've been asked once or twice for recommendations for a beginner and I tend to recommend a basic squier or epi guitar to taste and a Blackstar Core 10, rather than a starter pack.
To clarify, I wouldn't be surprised if the times we live in, where instant gratification appears to me to be more prevalent than ever before, has a detrimental effect (theoretically and very generally speaking) on activities such as playing guitar, which requires a lot of commitment and effort, and where you really can't realistically expect quick results. That's not to say that I think the world is worse than it's ever been, or that I think that young people are lazy, or that I want to sneer at anyone. I'm also not saying that I think this is in fact the state of the world we live in. I'm saying that it wouldn't come as a surprise to me if the above is the case. Please note: If.
I'm not sure what young people listen to nowadays. Are there any young guitar heroes out there to inspire them?
Guys like Misha Mansoor, Mark Holcomb, Tosin Abassi and I'm sure a few others.
But really not artists with mass market appeal so not really there for your average teenager
I have been running rock bands at a Girls School for the last 5 years and the young girls want to play one direction songs or Taylor swift and the older girls want to play panic at the disco, Imagine dragons etc. Not really "guitar driven" stuff
I try to get them doing more "rock" based stuff but they don't have the familiarity with the content so it has fizzled out now - a great shame
If someone thinks it's a choice between learning an instrument or playing on an Xbox1 then they were never going to learn an instrument anyway.
Quite a few people have asked me in the last year and very few of them have bought packs. Most have bought an Epiphone, a little amp and a looper.
My Trading Feedback | You Bring The Band
Just because you're paranoid, don't mean they're not after youI think this was actually true in the distant past as well - a 'starter pack' was something you bought from a mail-order catalogue, shops didn't stock them as such.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
@Legionreturns has a point. I don't remember ever recommending a starter pack but I certainly told parents what instruments or amplifiers would deliver value for money.
I always viewed starter packs as cheap shite that would soon disappoint. The guitars in them often required more to be spent on them to make them playable than the price of the starter pack.
Seriously: If you value it, take/fetch it yourself
...not many potential guitar players in amongst that lot.
My Trading Feedback | You Bring The Band
Just because you're paranoid, don't mean they're not after youAnd yet I found it.
Jazz still lives, flamenco still lives, classical music still lives. Guitar-based rock will live, it just won't be the biggest show in town any more. I'm fine with that. "underground" music is often where the most interesting things happen anyway.
It's weird to me that any decline in sales of these packs would be seen as a reflection on the interest kids have or don't have in playing. I've always associated those packs with "cheap crap", it wouldn't occur to me to buy one for a child, or anyone else I liked.
Plus we see a lot of terrible quality very cheap guitars bought off eBay/amazon coming in to be setup as they're unplayable... some the worst coming from a UK retailer who brand their own imports. When you add the cost of a setup and putting them right the guitars are rather expensive.
Seems a reasonable bet that people have been complaining about it pretty much since the dawn of language.