Factory and shop tour: Behind the scenes at Thomann's colossal campus

Musician’s the world over will, no doubt, have heard of the retail giant that is Thomann. The online store is Europe’s largest and home to practically every musical instrument conceivable. 

We were recently granted access all areas at the Thomann Campus in the Bavarian village of Treppendorf, which holds host to Europe’s largest warehouse, biggest service centre and an insanely-stocked music store. 

The warehouse and logistics centre is hugely impressive. We attempt to follow the trail of goods as they enter the building, to the processing of orders and finally packaged up for delivery.

The operation as a whole is always changing and the addition of a whole new logistics centre will allow an unprecedented number of orders to be fulfilled during the busiest times of the year.

Just another guitar in the wall

The Musikhaus Thomann is where it all began for Hans Thomann Snr in 1954, selling musical instruments out of his own home. The store still exists and has somewhat grown over the years with multiple departments serving guitars, drums, studio gear, synths, brass, woodwind, pianos and so much more.

We couldn’t resist a closer look at the guitar room with its 1300 instruments and “The Wall” featuring over 150 guitars.

Perhaps our favourite of all was a small room adjacent to the large guitar department, whose purpose was to facilitate the testing of a whole host of different amp and cab combinations.

A real highlight is the German retail giant’s well-stocked music production rooms, which come equipped with instruments, mics and controllers, ready to put an entire track together.

Add in bountiful synths, rack processors and the ability to compare monitors and microphones, and we struggled to leave the astounding array of gear.