“It’s about having a space that’s big enough to tell 132 years of stories” Gibson’s Mark Agnesi on why Miami’s new Gibson Garage is its biggest yet
Mark Agnesi has got used to answering the same question about Gibson’s latest Garage location: why Miami? The first of Gibson’s popular and innovative “retail experience” locations was in the brand’s home town of Nashville, the second jumped across the pond to London, reimagining the existing Gibson artist space in the centre of one of Europe’s biggest cities.
Most people might have expected the next Garage then, to build on that theme – a New York, Paris, Tokyo… Instead, they opted for a prime spot in the most bohemian part of one of America’s most fun towns. So, why Miami?
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“Why Miami? I don’t know if people realise that there’s this whole other part of the world that listens to music in Spanish, and Miami is the hub for all of that music, all of those bands, all of those artists,” Gibson’s Director of Brand Experience explains.
“It’s also a huge port of call for everyone coming in from South America. It’s one of those cities that a lot of people come to. And because of that we’ve had strong relations in Miami forever, so it made a lot of sense for us to put some roots down there as well.”
Inside the Gibson Garage Miami, including the custom-finished guitars created for launch (Image: Gibson)
Go Big
The Miami Garage is also a different proposition to the previous two spaces that Gibson has inhabited – both in vibe and scale. The location, which is smack bang in the middle of Miami’s artsy Wynwood neighborhood, is double the size of the other Garages, and is a much more bespoke offering than the other two.
“It’s the first time that I wasn’t handed a space to design it,” Agnesi explains. “This time we purposefully went out and started looking at spaces, and I got to take the learnings from the first two and really build out what I think the experience should be for Garages moving forward.”
For example, the Miami Garage’s ironic previous life as a parking garage helped create a focal point for the space that Agnesi feels elevates things above what Gibson has been able to do previously.
The exterior of Gibson Garage Miami is as striking as its interior (Image: Gibson)
“The performance space is really the star of the show in Miami,” Agnesi enthuses. “You know, I’m in the ground floor of a parking garage, so there’s no columns anywhere screwing up the interior. Like in Nashville, we have all these great things, but if you’re not in the right spot, you start getting blocked out by columns. Miami is this big space that we can put 400 people in, and everyone’s got unobstructed views of the stage.
“That was the first thing I fell in love with when I walked in there. And as a result the whole Garage really does revolve around the stage, the other areas just open up like a book around it – just like our open-book headstock, man. And the extra space, because we have several different brands, you can have a shop for each one.
“But then you can bring people together, and do these cool things that you really can’t typically do, like bring major artists through to play on stage in the middle of the afternoon, or have Marty Schwartz giving guitar lessons to people and letting kids jump up on stage with him. It’s about having a space that’s big enough to tell 132 years of stories.”
A mural outside the Gibson Garage Miami by street artist Nate Dee (Image: Gibson)
Art Rock
Wynwood is famous around the world as an epicentre of art – the area is home to dozens of galleries and the legendary Wynwood Walls project made the area a wonderfully realised canvas for street art.
Given the location, it was a natural fit for the Miami Garage to expand on the celebration of visual art that began with the London location – the Gibson Gallery. This photographic celebration of Gibson’s impact on music history is a small part of the London Garage, but it’s a large and permanent exhibit in Miami.
A Kramer mural inside the Gibson Garage Miami by street artist Solano (Image: Gibson)
“Just like to be able to walk in, even as a non-player who doesn’t quite understand the brand, and to look up at the walls and literally see the entire history of the last 100 years of recorded music on the wall,” Agnesi reflects. “It starts to click with people.”
The opportunity to bring some of Wynwood’s famous arts culture into the Miami Garage was also something that Agnesi couldn’t resist.
“You’re like ground zero for street art culture,” he reflects. “So we had an actual Wynwood street artist come in and do this massive mural for us in the Kramers section. So actually in the space, there is legit Miami street art. I believe each Garage has to feel like the city that they’re in, and in Miami it’s spectacular.”
Each of Gibson’s brands gets their own bespoke area at the Miami Garage (Image: Gibson)
Factory Record
The Gibson Garage locations have been celebrated for the way they bring the brand and its various sub-brands into the real world, and allow those who have never been to the Gibson factory in Nashville to experience a little of what it’s like. For Agnesi, it’s an ongoing process, but one where the passion for Gibson and guitars drives the whole endeavour.
“Because we love this stuff, man,” he explains. “No matter what, the one thing we all have in common is that we all love this stuff. And anytime you can be in a room with a tonne of guitars, it’s the best feeling in the world.
“But it’s easy to put a tonne of stuff in the room. What we really want to try and do is curate it correctly and artfully so that when people walk in, I want you to feel like you walked into the chocolate factory. I’m still always trying to get there, to give you the Willy Wonka experience. But we’re getting closer with each Garage, and sooner or later we’ll get it.”
“I think it’s really important that all roads – whether it’s product or marketing, storytelling or ad campaigns, our history – all of this stuff converges inside that space. If you’re really into it and you’re a fan of it, there’s this place that you can walk in and really be in the middle of everything that’s happening with Gibson.”
The performance space is the heart of the Miami Garage, and can hold up to 400 people (Image: Gibson)
Broad Church
Everything is an increasingly broad concept at Gibson. While the brand focused on getting the classic stuff right when it emerged from bankruptcy in 2019, the last few years has seen the family of brands branch out to target a much broader audience than it had for a long time – but for Agnesi that’s part of the Gibson DNA.
“We were talking about the Gibson Gallery. You know there’s a picture of Bill Monroe with his Gibson mandolin in there, practically inventing bluegrass. Then there’s “Mother” Maybelle Carter and the Carter family, they pretty much invented country. But then over here there’s BB King and Albert King, and over there there’s Slash and Jimmy Page, and over here is John Lee Hooker and Jimi Hendrix, and over here is Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie. Gibson really has been across all stringed instruments, across all genres of music since the dawn of recorded music. It’s all there, we are that diverse.
“So yeah, we had to get the core right first, but then you can start going places. We just released baritones a couple weeks ago. Baritones are back – it’s so cool! We can reach this whole other segment that we weren’t reaching before. We’re doing more stuff with Floyd Roses for people that want that stuff. We’ve got new pickup ranges and higher output pickups and all these different things. And the stuff that Epiphone is doing. I don’t even know if I can talk about some of the crazy new Epiphone stuff that’s coming… but it’s mind blowing how far it’s come in the last five six years.”
The Gibson Garage Miami is the first US Garage to feature a permanent Gibson Gallery display (Image: Gibson)
Hand in hand with the evolution has been the Garages, each one a multi-year project of increasing scope and ambition. And before he’s even finished with the Miami Garage, the brand announced that the next one would arrive sometime in 2027 on the Las Vegas Strip. Agnesi is clearly still focused on the Wynwood project, but the scope of the Vegas Garage is clearly something that has him very excited.
“I feel like Nashville and London are like churches to the brand, right?” Agnesi explains. “Miami is like a cathedral. Las Vegas is the Vatican. Las Vegas is on a totally different level. Las Vegas is a complex on the Vegas Strip, complete with architecture. The Gibson Garages have always just looked like whatever the building that we got the lease in looked like. This is the first time we really identify architecturally what the brand looks like.
“And now we’re going to be out on the Las Vegas Strip, with LED screens playing content out over Las Vegas, 24 hours a day. Las Vegas is a whole other thing. We’ll get into Las Vegas next year. I’m stoked about Miami right now. I’ve got too much to think about!”
Bespoke Gibson merch and custom-finished guitars are exclusive to the Miami Garage (Image Gibson)
The post “It’s about having a space that’s big enough to tell 132 years of stories” Gibson’s Mark Agnesi on why Miami’s new Gibson Garage is its biggest yet appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
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