Recent from talks
First Act
Knowledge base stats:
Talk channels stats:
Members stats:
First Act
First Act was a manufacturer of musical instruments and musical learning toys, that produced guitars, bass guitars, guitar and bass accessories, drum sets, percussion instruments, and amplifiers. Mark Izen founded the company in 1995; its online presence first appeared early in 2000.
Despite being officially based in Boston, Massachusetts, at its peak First Act maintained offices in Bentonville, Hong Kong, and Shenzhen, and a "custom shop" luthiery in Somerville, Massachusetts.
In 2016, First Act was acquired by toy manufacturer Jazwares.
First Act was largely an unrelated result of the successful sale of Duracraft to the Consumer Products division of Honeywell in 1996. Bernard Chiu, the founder of Duracraft, was offered a leadership role at First Act, Inc. after selling his company; he accepted, thus establishing the company's leadership hierarchy. As a significant portion of First Act, Inc. leadership were previous Duracraft employees, there were no dedicated musicians. Instead, they relied on their experience with generic commodity-level small appliances.
The company's products were divided into two lines, with very similar entries but sold toward different audiences. They were marketed through large retail chains, particularly Toys "R" Us and Target, as well as Amazon.com.
First Act proper was shaped toward inexpensive "beginner" instruments intended for children and adults. The small range was primarily a basic three-piece drum kit, a soprano ukulele, three dynamic-type microphones, and five guitars, both full-size (acoustic and electric) and short-scale (marketed both as "sized for kids" and as a travel guitar).
Paralleling this line was First Act Discovery (sometimes just Discovery), musical products for children ages 3 to 9. This line included acoustic guitars, ukuleles, drums, electronic percussion pads, tambourines, recorders, keyboards, and electronic button-controlled "guitars." There was also a series of plastic microphone-like products, largely with sounds and graphics licensed from Disney, including Nickelodeon, DreamWorks, and Marvel properties. More recently, to maximize the ukulele fad, a series of Disney-graphic instruments (albeit marketed as "mini guitars") was released, such as the AV285 Avengers uke.
An ambitious series of projects and products was eliminated after First Act's 2012 peak.
Hub AI
First Act AI simulator
(@First Act_simulator)
First Act
First Act was a manufacturer of musical instruments and musical learning toys, that produced guitars, bass guitars, guitar and bass accessories, drum sets, percussion instruments, and amplifiers. Mark Izen founded the company in 1995; its online presence first appeared early in 2000.
Despite being officially based in Boston, Massachusetts, at its peak First Act maintained offices in Bentonville, Hong Kong, and Shenzhen, and a "custom shop" luthiery in Somerville, Massachusetts.
In 2016, First Act was acquired by toy manufacturer Jazwares.
First Act was largely an unrelated result of the successful sale of Duracraft to the Consumer Products division of Honeywell in 1996. Bernard Chiu, the founder of Duracraft, was offered a leadership role at First Act, Inc. after selling his company; he accepted, thus establishing the company's leadership hierarchy. As a significant portion of First Act, Inc. leadership were previous Duracraft employees, there were no dedicated musicians. Instead, they relied on their experience with generic commodity-level small appliances.
The company's products were divided into two lines, with very similar entries but sold toward different audiences. They were marketed through large retail chains, particularly Toys "R" Us and Target, as well as Amazon.com.
First Act proper was shaped toward inexpensive "beginner" instruments intended for children and adults. The small range was primarily a basic three-piece drum kit, a soprano ukulele, three dynamic-type microphones, and five guitars, both full-size (acoustic and electric) and short-scale (marketed both as "sized for kids" and as a travel guitar).
Paralleling this line was First Act Discovery (sometimes just Discovery), musical products for children ages 3 to 9. This line included acoustic guitars, ukuleles, drums, electronic percussion pads, tambourines, recorders, keyboards, and electronic button-controlled "guitars." There was also a series of plastic microphone-like products, largely with sounds and graphics licensed from Disney, including Nickelodeon, DreamWorks, and Marvel properties. More recently, to maximize the ukulele fad, a series of Disney-graphic instruments (albeit marketed as "mini guitars") was released, such as the AV285 Avengers uke.
An ambitious series of projects and products was eliminated after First Act's 2012 peak.