Will fly to Musikmesse Frankfurt in this April

[Acon]

Hi guys,

I live in Australia and I am going to start a new accordion business here. My main activities will be accordion tuition, instrument selling, performance/competition holding and maybe CD recording/publishing.

One of the most important accordion brands I would like to work with is PIGINI, and I have made an appointment with them at Musikmesse Frankfurt this year (5th-8th April). Flight tickets (my wife & me) were already booked. We will stay in Europe from 3rd - 16th. Besides 5th and 6th to stay in the Musikmesse Frankfurt, we want to spend the rest of days visiting cities around Frankfurt.

So, as a person visiting Europe for the first time with no music business background, I want to ask you kind members here:
(1) Is there anything must to do or see in the Musikmesse Frankfurt? I will try to visit some other accordion related companies to see if I can get more opportunity.

(2) Can you recommend some good places to visit around Frankfurt? We don't mind to spend few hours taking the train to get to any spot worth visiting. But the plan must be done recently before we book all the Airbnb accommodation spots and get all the visas needed.

We hope to visit places with good history to explore, especially music history. We might go to Salzburg to visit Mozart's home and Prague to see the Vltava river.

Any reply would be appreciated.
Cheers,

Acon

 

[Soulsaver]

Hohners contemporary accordion museum - Trossingen c.180 miles from Frankfurt http://accordion-museum.com/en/accordions/de/hohner
Research this info. Although I know people who have visited, Ive not been there myself, and I believe it was closed for a period last year, 2016.

PS The pic of Dr. Ernst Hohner is no way taken in 1920...

 

[JerryPH]

Trossingen is home of Hohner. A visit of their factory would be nice. I know that if I had a day within 250 miles of that place, I would easily drive there and spend a day touring the Hohner factory. And yes the Hohner museum would be day #2 in the area for me.

But... Pigini is in Castelfidardo, Italy... I cannot see starting a business venture with them without going to their factory, the place where you see how their accordions are built, the place where you might be able to talk to the people that make this accordion and where the entire history of Pigini is centralized.

http://www.pigini.com/en/contacts

Its a hell of a drive for most, but Im from Canada, a place where we can drive 120 kilometers per hour for 12 hours in one direction and still be in the same province within Canada, much less be in a different country (lol).

The drive from Frankfurt to Castelfidardo is 1100km and that might scare the average traveler, but I can see myself doing an amazing accordion vacation sometime in late 2017 or early 2018 to Europe that involves driving several thousand kilometers in my time there, touching the Czech Republic (to check out Delicia... but I also have family there, that would be the main reason), Trossingen Germany (to check out Hohner, and yes, I have family there too), and of course Castelfidardo, Italy (no family there, but this is accordion heaven!).

I know a vacation is not the same as a business venture, but I would guess that the people I really need to talk to likely wont be at Musikmesse but at the head office of where their factories are. At a music show, you traditionally place your junior sales people and best musicians, people that can demonstrate your instruments, not the people that can make serious business decisions for your needs.

Back to business... I believe April 11, 2017 is an international accordion competition in Prague, CZ. If you are in the area, dont miss it. Google for more info.

The International Accordion Competition in Klingenthal Germany happens in May, so thats out for you unfortunately, but you do have the The 1st International Open Accordion Contest (IOAC) and the Akkordeon Grenzenlos (Accordions Unlimited) 2017 Festival happening in Trossingen, Germany, on April 18 to 22.

Just for info, Vienna Austria holds a 2 month long HUGE accordion festival from February to March with tons of events almost every 2nd day in different parts of Vienna. Many events are free, some are pay to enter, all are amazing.

Salzburg is a quaint town, I enjoyed my time there, but it was very laid back and slow, a great place to spend a few days to relax. Many small museums to visit, and several lovely churches abound, of course.

 

[Matt Butcher]

(Very best of luck with the business)

 

[debra]

Best of luck with the business!
I visited the Frankfurter Musikmesse a few times in the past 2 decades. The accordion presence has gone downhill there, but a few of the big ones should still be there, like Pigini, Bugari, Scandalli, and some smaller ones, like Cooperfisa and the likes... but last year there was for instance no Hohner stand, no Ballone Burini (they went out of business later) and no Victoria or Piermaria if I remember correctly, etc. I only saw Cagnoni from the reed manufacturers and nobody was at their booth.
The place to go to is indeed Castelfidardo where the factories are and also suppliers of accordion parts you may need for the business. A visit to just the accordion factories is not enough: they make accordion "bodies" but you need to find where the sources are for the many different parts that make up an accordion and that companies like Pigini and Bugari just outsource. Accordion makers do not produce the reeds, keys, buttons, valves, straps, etc. So you need to make contact with a large distributor there. I'm hoping to get to Castelfidardo either late this year or next year to make contacts to parts suppliers so that I can order everything I need to do accordion repairs.
Fortunately you should have no visa issues: once you get a visa for Germany it will be a Schengen visa and you can travel to all Schengen countries without separate visas.

 

[Acon]

Big thanks to everyone for your information!!

After few days of busy emailing, phone calling back and forth with PIGINI, my partners in Taiwan and here in Brisbane, we have a better picture about this trip.

I googled all the information you provided but unfortunately it seems we will miss all of them! the international accordion competition in Prague Jerry mentioned will be actually held in November, not April. All other events are not available within the trip days as well. So basically it's like an accordion vacuum during my trip.

So we decided to forget about any accordion related activity and just visit Salzburg and Prague. As for Castelfidardo, maybe we will visit it next time because my partner in Taiwan is already one of PIGINI's official reseller and has a good reputation so through him I think we will a nice partnership with PIGINI this time in Frankfurt. My local partner in Brisbane also wants to meet PIGINI but can't go with me this time, so maybe we will fly to Castelfidardo together in the future.

About the accordion repair, maintenance and parts, I will learn from a Chinese accordionist and accordion repairman who has been working in PIGINI before in the near future. He will also provide me the supplier contact in Castelfidardo so it seems I don't really have to fly there in a short time. (But as I said, I will in the future)

Anyway thank you all guys. This trip is becoming simpler and now we only have to figure out our accommodation and tour detail in this three locations (Frankfurt, Salzburg and Prague).

Cheers. {}

 

[Soulsaver]

As an aside then, I talked to a contact who had a 'tour' of the Hohner Trossingen site last year. He said he saw no accordions being made there... but that was where the museum was located at the time.

 

[JerryPH]

there are 2 Hohner factories... the old one and the new one:
http://www.peterunbehauen.de/p/06-hohner.html

The old Hohner factory is near the museum. If you can even get in to the old factory, it is supposed to be nothing but an amazing time capsule. The old architecture, the paperwork, the way they used to work is apparently still all there. The real work, however, is all done at the new factory. A slightly antiseptic yet modern facility.

BTW, its now in 3 places on the net that I see that the IOAC event in Trossingen is on for April:
http://dhv-ev.de/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Ausschreibung-IOAC-2017-D.pdf

... and if in the area, Delicia has a store in Prage and the factory in Horovice (a mere 55km away).
https://mapy.cz/zakladni?x=14.4436060&y=50.0714077&z=17&source=addr&id=9014572

Its worth at least a look.

 

[Soulsaver]

there are 2 Hohner factories... the old one and the new one:
http://www.peterunbehauen.de/p/06-hohner.html

The old Hohner factory is near the museum. If you can even get in to the old factory, it is supposed to be nothing but an amazing time capsule. The old architecture, the paperwork, the way they used to work is apparently still all there. The real work, however, is all done at the new factory. A slightly antiseptic yet modern facility.

Those factory tour pics from the new factory in the link you provide are from 10 years ago, Jerry.

 

[JerryPH]

Those factory tour pics from the new factory in the link you provide are from 10 years ago, Jerry.

Yup, nicest pics I could find online. My cousins who live in Trossingen mentioned that basically nothing has changed, except the price of the tour of the new place has gone up and you must now book in advance.

 

[debra]

Those factory tour pics from the new factory in the link you provide are from 10 years ago, Jerry.

Yup, nicest pics I could find online. My cousins who live in Trossingen mentioned that basically nothing has changed, except the price of the tour of the new place has gone up and you must now book in advance.[/quote]
And I also wonder what they are really still making in the factory. As the expensive Hohner instruments (maybe not the Gola but the others) are under some control of Pigini (as they formerly were under the control of Excelsior) I wonder which parts and subassemblies come ready made into the Trossingen factory and what is still really made in Germany.

 

[Soulsaver]

Those factory tour pics from the new factory in the link you provide are from 10 years ago, Jerry.

Yup, nicest pics I could find online. My cousins who live in Trossingen mentioned that basically nothing has changed, except the price of the tour of the new place has gone up and you must now book in advance.[/quote]
And I also wonder what they are really still making in the factory. As the expensive Hohner instruments (maybe not the Gola but the others) are under some control of Pigini (as they formerly were under the control of Excelsior) I wonder which parts and subassemblies come ready made into the Trossingen factory and what is still really made in Germany.[/quote]

And the low end stuff is made in China. The web suggests theyre still making harmonicas at Trossingen; Im a bit surprised that hasnt gone Asian, too - but its hard to say how old some of the internet info is and may be out of date.

Again from stuff on tinternet (2009) the higher spec Corona was still being produced there, but the lower spec one was made in China.

 

[Acon]

Thanks for all the updates. Unfortunately the dates of the competition are still out of my journey.
We've almost fixed our traveling route as below:

3rd - 8th Stay in Frankfurt to meet PIGINI and other accordion manufacturers.
8th Leave Frankfurt and stay at Nuremberg for one night
9th Head for Prague and stay for 3 days enjoying some concerts
12th Head for Salzburg and stay for 3 days for some Mozart chocolates
15th Spend about 7 hours backing to Frankfurt and stay overnight near the airport
16th Fly back to Brisbane

Now I start to worry about having nothing to practice during the trip. My accordion is too heavy to carry
for such a long trip. I regret so much that I didn't buy a little PIGINI free-bass-only accordion on eBay before
(weighs only 4.5kg!) and now it's gone.

Acon