North American Electronic Sound Expo to Hold Its Exhibitor Welcome Reception at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

The North American Electronic Sound Expo (NAESE), a new three-day expo for electronic-sound instruments and the people who make and play them, will hold its inaugural Exhibitor Welcome Reception at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame on Thursday, April 8, 2027, the evening before its public expo opens April 9-11 at the Huntington Convention Center of Cleveland.

Built community-first, NAESE is for the makers who build the instruments, the developers who code them, the artists who perform on them, and the people who love them. It spans four pillars: TOUCH (the expo floor), SHARE (sessions, panels, and workshops), HEAR (performances), and PLAY (open jam spaces).

The Exhibitor Welcome Reception gathers the makers, developers, and manufacturers exhibiting at NAESE for a chance to meet and network the evening before the public floor opens, on The Bridge, the museum's Level 3 event space overlooking the Cleveland skyline. Exhibitors have complimentary access to the museum's exhibits that evening, before and after the reception.

For NAESE's founder, who now lives in New York, Cleveland is a homecoming.

"Honestly, I still can't quite believe we get to do this," said Greg Kefalas, NAESE's founder and executive producer. "I'm from Canton, so Cleveland is where my first big live music gigs were, and now Year 1 opens at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, the night before the floor does. The people who solder this gear, code it, and play it are doing some of the most exciting work in music right now. Bringing NAESE to Cleveland and opening the weekend by welcoming them to the Hall felt exactly right."

"Every one of these makers, from the biggest names to the one-person shops, is building something worth celebrating," said co-founder Mike Weakley. "Kicking NAESE's first year off with them at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is exactly how it should be. At NAESE the makers come first, and this is us proving it."

The Exhibitor Welcome Reception is for NAESE exhibitors and is not a public event. All NAESE badge holders receive $5 off adult Rock & Roll Hall of Fame admission from two days before the expo through two days after. The public expo runs April 9-11, 2027 at the Huntington Convention Center of Cleveland, and badges are on sale now at naese.co.