As you may or may not know, all of the analysts here are RSR are also musicians. Brian is still very actively recording and gigging with his band, Slim Chance and the Guilty Saints — they can be seen all over California’s Bay Area several weekends a month. Sadly, Paula, Nikki and I only dust off our all-black stage wear once a year these days, joining Brian and a host of other musicians from the retail industry at RIS’ annual charity fundraiser, Rock n Roll Retail. If you’ve never been, you really should consider attending it this coming January at NRF’s Big Show — the event is a total blast, and helps raise money for a very worthy cause; the Retail Orphan Initiative.

I’ve all but abandoned my rock n’ roll dreams of stardom. But a few years ago, when a friend came to me with an idea about building musical instruments — snare drums made out of glass, to be exact — I jumped at the opportunity to help out any way that I could. I am not very handy, but I do know a few things about sound that could help during the design process — and also I could share a tip or two about retail when he was ready to head to market.

So this past Sunday I traveled down to Newington, Connecticut to join my friend at a booth for his first-ever trade show in a town near his home. The event was a very small, percussion-only event held at a Shriner’s lodge. Two rooms on the first floor held a couple dozen vendors, most of whom were selling rare and expensive vintage drum equipment, while the basement featured instructional clinics from regional drummers of note.

I was blown away by the attendance. In one day, nearly 500 visitors traveling from as far away as Philadelphia and Maine poured into the tiny venue. The noise these people created while banging on drums and splashing into cymbals was a little more than any normal human could tolerate – but amid the din, a lot of cash was being shelled out. I spent most of my time answering questions about the drum we’d brought to display, but as the crowd stated to fizzle around 4PM, I walked around and conversed with the vendors in attendance to ask how they had fared.

Many reported record sales since 2008. These retailers are not the casual kind — most dedicate every weekend from spring through fall traveling to various music events all up and down the East Coast. To hear their delight at the volume of people actually spending was music (all pun intended) to this analyst’s ears.

While I’m not making any predictions about the economy’s revival as a whole, it only took a few minutes with the show’s organizer at day’s end to understand that as of right now, one very high-end market appears to be experiencing a stronger revival than anyone could have predicted. As someone who, in a past life, has been in his shoes — on the hook for an event’s success by two very specific metrics (did they show up, and did they spend?) — I was quite pleased to share in his relief. It will be even more encouraging to hear technology vendors during this upcoming user conference season agree.