Do you fancy a VIP tour round the Thomann’s HQ in Treppendorf and a €200 Thomann gift card?
Thought so. The German online gear retailer are celebrating their 70th birthday this year with a Willy Wonka-style competition. Here’s the deal: if you place an order with Thomann between today (September 16) and October 14 you will be automatically entered for a prize draw to give away 14 ‘golden tickets’.
After that date, the draw will be made and the 14 lucky winners will receive their golden tickets by post – not email, Thomann are keen to point out.
The day of the tour is Friday 15 November. Lucky golden ticket holders will have seven days to accept the invitation so there’s enough time to re-draw and sort a replacement if they cannot attend.
And what do the 14 lucky winners get? Well, they’ll receive a rare opportunity to go behind the scenes of Europe’s largest music store, including a VIP tour conducted by Hans Thomann Jr himself, that €200 gift card, dinner at the Thomann kitchen and a surprise goodie bag. All travel arrangements and hotel accommodation is covered too.
Pretty cool, eh? Sounds like the Roald Dahl story, except with music gear, less chocolate (and -thankfully - less bumping off of spoilt children).
Founded in 1954, Thomann are in many ways an anomaly: a traditional, family company that has flourished in the digital era. It helped enormously that they were ahead of the game, setting up their website early in 1996. At the time many questioned whether online retail would work in this market, given that musicians have traditionally liked to test new instruments out first. But by 2008 two million musicians from all over Europe were using their website. Thomann eventually would outstrip Amazon in their chosen field and by 2023 had reached a revenue of €1.4 billion per annum. Their other stats are equally impressive - 1500 employees, 100,000 product lines, the website has 18 different languages and shifts around 25,000 products a day.
From its early years of operating out of a local farmhouse, Thomann has come to dominate Treppendorf, becoming the largest employer in local area. In a recent interview with Frankfurt Rundshau, Hans Jr put the company’s success down to the quality of its employees, saying: "The fact that Thomann is doing so well also has to do with the fact that we employ a lot of musicians. If someone has been playing an instrument for years, as a boss. I can assume that they can stick with something.”
For more information on the Golden Ticket competition go to the Thomann website now
