Mars Music
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Mars Music, Inc. was a chain of
music stores A music store or musical instrument store is a retail business that sells musical instruments and related equipment and accessories. Some music stores sell additional services, such as music lessons, music instrument or equipment rental, or r ...
based in
Fort Lauderdale Fort Lauderdale ( ) is a coastal city located in the U.S. state of Florida, north of Miami along the Atlantic Ocean. It is the county seat of and most populous city in Broward County with a population of 182,760 at the 2020 census, making it ...
,
Florida Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...
. The company was founded in 1996 by guitarist and former
Office Depot The ODP Corporation is an American office supply retailer headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida. The company operates 922 retail stores in the United States under the Office Depot and OfficeMax brands, as well as e-commerce sites and a business ...
president Mark Begelman, who created the superstore store chain after experiencing dissatisfaction with his own music store shopping experiences. MARS was initially an acronym for "Music And Recording Superstore." At its peak following an aggressive expansion plan, Mars Music consisted of 49 stores in 20 states and was the second largest company of its kind in the US, but the company went out of business in late 2002 after over-expansion, struggles to raise additional capital, and a failed reorganization attempt.


Company history

Mark Begelman began Mars Music with the purchase of the five-store Ace Music store chain in south Florida. He had gone into one of the Ace Music locations to try a guitar amplifier, but a salesperson told him he couldn't turn up the volume, and that if he purchased it and didn't like it, he wouldn't be able to get a refund. Frustrated with his shopping experience and music stores' limited product selection, lack of clear pricing, and store personnel who wouldn't allow customers to try the merchandise, he used $10 million of his own funds to start Mars Music. The company slogan was "We love it when you touch the stuff" and the chain offered a 45-day return policy. A retail superstore concept, Mars Music had a wide selection of music instruments and pro audio equipment clearly priced on display for customers to try in large stores, each with practice rooms, a recording studio, and a performance stage, all with the slogan "We love when you touch the stuff." Mars Music stores included a "Learning Center" where instrument lessons for individuals and groups were taught, including the "Babies Make Music" early childhood music program and "Weekend Warriors" program designed for adults who want to play on the weekends. At one point, Mars Music was the largest provider of private music lessons in the US. Mars also introduced interactive online instrument lessons with pitch recognition technologies that were new at the time."Chain Of Music Superstores Opens First L.A. Outlets"
Christopher Keogh, Los Angeles Business Journal, November 2000
A related charitable organization, the Mars Music Foundation, operated to grant music lessons and the "In Tune With Kids" program that accepted instrument donations, then reconditioned and donated the instruments to area schools.


Partnerships and sponsorships

In January 2000, Mars Music entered into an agreement with
SFX Entertainment LiveStyle, Inc. is a Los Angeles-based live events conglomerate founded by media entrepreneur Robert F. X. Sillerman. The company was formed in June 2012 as SFX Entertainment—the new incarnation of Sillerman's previous company of the same nam ...
, paying $3.3 million to secure the naming rights of the Coral Sky Amphitheatre for six years, renaming it the Mars Music Amphitheatre., "Mars Widens Its Orbit, Ventures Into Coral Sky
David Altaner, Sun Sentinel, Jan 2000
However, Mars declared bankruptcy two years later, and the facility returned to its original name. The Mars Music e-commerce division, marsmusic.com, co-sponsored Metallica's
Summer Sanitarium Tour The Summer Sanitarium Tour was a music event led by American heavy metal band Metallica. The first edition took place during the summer of 2000, with 20 shows in the United States. A second edition was held during the summer of 2003, with 21 sho ...
in the summer of 2000, including online fan chats and a live concert webcast. Mars Music launched a record label named Martian Records, a partnership between Mars Music and Chris Blackwell's
Palm Pictures Palm Pictures is an American entertainment company owned and run by Chris Blackwell. Palm Pictures produces, acquires, and distributes music and film projects with a particular focus on the DVD-Video format. Palm places an emphasis on such proj ...
. The first and only act signed to the label was Seven Channels, selected through a contest that generated over 3,000 submissions from hopeful unsigned acts.


Expansion and bankruptcy

In 2000, Mars expected to gross $300 million in sales and was planning for a future initial public offering. In April of that year, Mars launched their e-commerce website, marsmusic.com. But as expansion costs exceeded shrinking
venture capital Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity financing provided by firms or funds to start-up company, startup, early-stage, and emerging companies, that have been deemed to have high growth potential or that have demonstrated high growth in ...
markets following the
dot-com bubble The dot-com bubble (or dot-com boom) was a stock market bubble that ballooned during the late-1990s and peaked on Friday, March 10, 2000. This period of market growth coincided with the widespread adoption of the World Wide Web and the Interne ...
and subsequent
stock market downturn of 2002 In 2001, stock prices took a sharp downturn (some say "stock market crash" or " the Internet bubble bursting") in stock markets across the United States, Canada, Asia, and Europe. After recovering from lows reached following the September 11 attac ...
, Mars Music was forced to attempt reorganization under Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and eventually filed
Chapter 7 bankruptcy Chapter 7 of Title 11 U.S. Code is the bankruptcy code that governs the process of liquidation under the bankruptcy laws of the United States. This is in contrast to bankruptcy under Chapter 11 and Chapter 13, which govern the process of ''re ...
in November 2002.Marcia Heroux Pounds
"Music Store Giant Mars Inc. Files for Bankruptcy"
September 2002


Notes and references


External links


Mark Begelman Interview
at NAMM Oral History Collection (2017) Companies based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida Retail companies established in 1996 Retail companies disestablished in 2002 Defunct retail companies of the United States Musical instrument retailers of the United States Defunct companies based in Florida Companies that have filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy Companies that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2002 Companies that filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2002