Play Music Today, formerly known as Professional Music Technology and often shortened to PMT Online, PMT, or PMT Music, is a musical instrument retailer with stores across England and Wales. The

warehouse A warehouse is a building for storing goods. Warehouses are used by manufacturers, importers, exporters, wholesalers, transport businesses, customs, etc. They are usually large plain buildings in industrial parks on the outskirts of cities ...

logistics Logistics is generally the detailed organization and implementation of a complex operation. In a general business sense, logistics manages the flow of goods between the point of origin and the point of consumption to meet the requirements of ...

, sales marketing and

e-commerce E-commerce (electronic commerce) is the activity of electronically buying or selling of products on online services or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile commerce, electronic funds transfer, supply chain manageme ...

teams are in

Speke, Liverpool Speke () is a suburb of Liverpool. It is southeast of the city centre. Located near the widest part of the River Mersey, it is bordered by the suburbs of Garston and Hunts Cross, and nearby to Halewood, Hale Village, and Widnes. The rural ar ...

, with the original store located in

Southend On Sea Southend-on-Sea (), commonly referred to as Southend (), is a coastal city and unitary authority area with borough status in southeastern Essex, England. It lies on the north side of the Thames Estuary, east of central London. It is bordered ...

, UK. PMT's Birmingham location is the biggest music shop in the UK. PMT’s online store offers a range of musical instruments including Guitars, Drums, Keyboards and PA systems along with a

blog A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order ...

that provides information on newly released products, how-to guides and ‘Best Of’ instrument lists. Play Music Today also has a YouTube channel reviewing new musical instruments and offering advice to musicians of all levels.

History

The first PMT store was opened on 17 August 1991 in Southend On Sea, UK by owners Simon Gilson and Terry Hope under the holding company of S&T Audio. Since then, the company has expanded to 15 locations across the UK, selling musical instruments such as Guitars, Bass, Drums/Percussion, Keys, Vocal Solutions, PA, Studio/Recording equipment, DJ/Producer equipment and musical instrument accessories both in-store and online via their own website. In May 2011, PMT acquired Liverpool-based

Dolphin Music Dolphin Music was an online retailer selling a vast array of musical instruments and recording equipment online and is currently owned by S&T Audio. It first began in Liverpool, England in 1999. History Robert Williams (11 September 1979 &mdas ...

, continuing to trade under both names before closing Dolphin and merging the site with PMT Online in 2017. In 2013, members of

Radiohead Radiohead are an English rock band formed in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, in 1985. The band consists of Thom Yorke (vocals, guitar, piano, keyboards); brothers Jonny Greenwood (lead guitar, keyboards, other instruments) and Colin Greenwood (bass) ...

and

Supergrass Supergrass are an English rock band formed in 1993 in Oxford. For the majority of the band's tenure, the line-up consisted of brothers Gaz (lead vocals, guitar) and Rob Coombes (keyboards), Mick Quinn (bass, backing vocals) and Danny Goffey ( ...

helped stop PMT's

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

location from being converted into a cafe and restaurant as part of a hotel development. In March 2016, PMT acquired Nevada Music in

Portsmouth Portsmouth ( ) is a port and city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. The city of Portsmouth has been a unitary authority since 1 April 1997 and is administered by Portsmouth City Council. Portsmouth is the most dens ...

, re-branding the existing Nevada Music store to PMT. In 2022, PMT rebranded from Professional Music Technology to Play Music Today, with an emphasis on community, inclusivity, and making music available to all regardless of skill. The flagship Southend store closed that year.

YouTube

The Play Music Today

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

channel, was started to provide viewers with information on current product reviews as well as ‘How To’ guides and ‘Best Of’ lists. PMTVUK now has over 354,000 subscribers (March 2023).

References

External links

* {{Official website Online retailers of the United Kingdom Music retailers of the United Kingdom English YouTubers British companies established in 1991