The Guitar Industry Is Ageing Out (and Many Still Don’t See It) 👴🏻

The MI industry loves nostalgia.

Vintage colours. Classic shapes. Period correct limited runs for exorbitant prices. Artist tie-ins from records released before 90% of TikTok users were born.

Nothing wrong with that history and heritage is part of our magic!

But here is my question:

Is a huge part of our industry still building and marketing guitars/amps/pedals to an audience that is no longer the primary market? and most certainly not the future of it?

I’ve spoken to brands, retailers, and players almost daily for over two decades, and this keeps coming up repeatedly, our industry’s mental picture of “the guitar customer” is stuck in the 90s. A male, middle-aged blues-rock player. Comfortable disposable income. Likely to buy the same guitar twice in sunburst. 🥱

They do still exist and we should serve them well. But they’re no longer the only audience. 

Meanwhile, there’s a huge generation of younger and also female players:

They grew up online, not in Guitarist Magazine like we did.

They discover gear on YouTube and TikTok, not a shop wall.

They buy more based on videos they've watched by their favourite creators than spec sheets

If we want the industry growing, not ageing, the products and marketing need to reflect where energy is coming from not just where it used to come from. 

For decades, the industry was powered by my generation the “one day I’ll own a real Fender/Gibson” crowd. You climbed from Squier → Mexican → USA. That was the dream and what we did.

That was how you proved you were a ‘real guitarist.’ 🏆

But the world has moved on.

Most younger players today don’t care about that logo on the headstock.

Many don’t even recognise the lineage. 🤷♂️

They’ll buy what looks cool, feels good, and shows up on their feed 📱

Not what our heroes used. 

And that’s where the panic should start ringing. 🚨

Because if we don’t adapt to younger players quickly we’re sleepwalking into becoming the Hi-Fi industry 📻

A nostalgia market. A museum with a catalogue.

Where the industry is stuck 🧊

Walk into enough guitar shops (and I do often), and you’ll still find a familiar story

• Sunburst, black, white and “heritage correct” everywhere 🟤⚫️⚪️

• Endless reissues of the same shapes

• Artist tie-ins with nearly always male players who peaked 50 years ago

• High-end Custom Shops priced for only for collectors, not musicians 💼

• Young players side-eyed unless they look like they can afford it 🧒👀

The big boys, you know who 🙄 are the worst offenders.

Beautiful instruments, iconic names… but still selling yesterday’s dream. 🕰️

It’s like the industry is frozen in amber. Reissuing the past in ever smaller limited runs. While the future scrolls by on TikTok at 1am. 📲

And here’s the uncomfortable bit, that audience is ageing out. Not disappearing entirely(yet) but shrinking and fast.

If we don’t plant new seeds, we won’t have a forest left. 🌱🌳

Younger players are here but they’re not always being courted in the right way🧑🎸

Last weekend at the Absolute Music JET + Spira takeover day, I saw the future in real time.

A fabulously well attended day in a beautiful and modern store. With enthusiastic and knowledgeable staff there was a real buzz throughout the day.

But the best bit was the customers buying the guitars –

Two Jet guitars sold to two nine-year-old mates 🤯

Another sold to a 12 year old soon to be rockstar. 😍

Multiple Spira Guitars to players aged 14–17 🎸

All confident. All excited. All real guitar lovers.

They weren’t hunting a ’59 burst replica, they wanted something that felt like them. Something that looks and makes them feel cool, they've seen videos of online, is well made and inspires them at prices they could afford. ⚡️

That gave me hope. It should give all of us hope.

Young players exist. They are not immune to GAS it just comes to them via different ways than it did for us.

But they need to be inspired not handed homework disguised as heritage.

Let’s be honest… learning guitar is hard 😅

This is the elephant in the room no one says out loud.

Guitar isn’t easy, or any instrument for that matter. It doesn’t reward you every 3 seconds like an iPad game or Fortnite. It demands patience, repetition, frustration tolerance, especially in the beginning.

And unless we make the journey fun, modern and engaging, we risk losing a generation to screens and consoles 🎮📱

Not because guitar isn’t cool but because our industry made it feel old!

If you want tomorrow’s player, earn them 🚀

• Guitars that are fresh and exciting and have an online buzz 🎨

• Bold colours that aren’t just “safe”

• Consistent quality that surprises at £200–£500

• Brands that are have a great online presence and community

• Drop the heritage worship

Today, kids dream of the guitar their favourite creator used last night not what Clapton used in ’68.

Creators are the new rock stars. 🎥🔥

If you’re still hanging your entire marketing on 70s players, good luck winning Gen Z. 

Retailers: stop guarding the wall 🧱

Too many shops still treat young players like a risk.

No try-outs. No “have a go on this”. No spark.

Yes, a scratch hurts. I get it.

But here’s the bigger danger:

If you don’t let them fall in love today, they won’t return to buy tomorrow.

Every demo is a seed 🌱

Not every seed becomes a sale but without seeds there will be no harvest later.

If a 14-year-old walks into your shop, that’s not an inconvenience. It’s the future of your business.

The fix is simple but takes courage 💡 

Three things the industry must do now:

1. Make video the first language of gear marketing.

Short, fun, human content not catalogues and spec sheets. 🎥

2. Build/Stock modern designs, modern colours, modern price points.

£199–£599 excitement beats £3,999 nostalgia all day long. ⚔️

3. Work with creators, not ghosts.

Influence drives aspiration today not legacy. 👾

The future is there for the taking. Ignore it and it will soon be too late.

So the big question of the week: 👇

Are you selling guitars/amps/pedals for the players we used to be or the players who are coming next? 🤔

Let me know your thoughts, especially if you disagree. That’s where the good discussion starts!