So I thought I'd share some of our experiences at the show this year....
As everyone knows I was going to bow out but got a ton of flak for doing so and
my employer gave me a week off to prepare so I was able to get everything done just in time...
I got to meet Woolson, Brock, Mayes, Mcknight, How, Mauel and Poling for the first time on thursday,
Tim brought along his better half as did I (we are both very lucky men). Everyone was very nice
and I was really impressed by the work the others did, Mayes only brought one acoustic and two
of the cutest little ukes I've ever seen, he also had some very cool tele-style electrics with him.
Woolson was showing three and even I had to ask what wood he was using
, I got to tune up and
play his guitars on saturday morning and they sounded awesome (and they smelled good too).
McKnight was stuck in the other hall from where we where, he brought 5 (if I counted right), sold 2 that I know of and was whisked away in a limo to a waiting helicopter bearing his name...
He blushes when I say
this but Tim's work is STELLAR, we builders know what to look for and I'm telling you his stuff is really good. He even sold me on the sound port idea, which I had ignored until now as a fad.
If you went to the show last time they moved the bulk of the builders to the area outside the main concert hall, they had tables around the edges and then rows in the middle. The atrium held the overflow builders and LMI's booth and some of the other vendors. One thing that was clear from the start was that it was going to be crowded, we only got half a table and to be honest I think that was our single biggest mistake,
we where stuffed between James Russell and Stephen Cyr who had at least 11 instruments with him (he was sharing my table).Next time we are getting a full one, I had more than enough to show and could have used the space.....
Friday was pretty busy, lots of tire kickers and lookie loo's... I had the Zricote go out for a test
ride a couple of times and both the fanned fret and the flag guitar generated a ton of interest.
I had some people come by who where working on a book of guitar art and they ran off with the flag and the
fanned fret for pictures, Dave from the 13th took them for a session that I assume was for LMI (I wasn't
there so maybe he was just doing something for the fret). And I answered questions about the how's
and why's of fanned frets.......
Friday night I got to go out with Mayes and Woolson, we got to witness John whipping out a uke to try
and sing for his dinner tab, unfortunately the young lady was less than moved by his sudden serenade and
he ended up paying anyway. We had a great time and got to talk shop and just hang out together. We realized
that chairs suck for a show as does standing so we went to Kmart and bought stools
Saturday the bomb went off, the show opened at 11 and by 11:30 was packed, it was wall to wall people all
day long, I got out a couple of times to visit Paul and John but was stuck in the booth most of the time
answering questions about fanned frets.... I don't remember alot about saturday except a couple of things:
* Jim Olson stopped and looked over my work and gave me the big thumbs up, he was very encouraging in his comments to me.
* Kevin Ryan literally gave me a big thumbs up on the flag guitar on his way by.
* Grit Laskin stopped by and was duly impressed with the flag guitar, looked everything else over real quick
and told me that it all looked great. (at this point my wife had to prop me up).
* I managed to scare Bill Wise who was telling me he liked my work while I was telling him how big a fan
I was
By 6 at the close of the show we realized that we needed price sheets so we ran back to the hotel and stayed
up till midnight in word typing them up and looking for a Kinko's.
Sunday was not as bad a saturday but it was still very busy, alot of builders where out and about and
we got alot of very gracious comments from everyone who stopped by, I got to meet Mike Doolin who is a
great guy and we discussed KTM-9 and some of the techniques we where using, he was very impressed with my
finishes and I attributed that to him and Grevan (who also stopped by to admire the finishes and talk shop).
Kathy Wingert came over, played the flag guitar for a while and gave me some pointers and some of the performers at the show stopped by to look over the fanned fret and beg to play it....
I know I missed a ton of stuff, it was like drinking from a firehose, at the end of the day you where just
exhausted and spent. So here are some take aways from my point of view...
* Moonstone makes some killer guitars, they had a double neck there I wanted to take home.
* John How had the *one* guitar that I honestly would have bought if I had the money, it was awesome,
it had wood inlay along the top edge (like you do with shell) and a nice florentine cutaway... If he still has it I could be in trouble...
* Tim and his wife are the nicest people on this earth, they are just genuine all around good people
(however since he sold so much stuff we still aren't talking to him)...
* The show floor was too crowded, one less row would have given them better spacing IMO....
* Simple things seemed to sell the best, of the people who sold it seemed to me that it was the plain guitars that got purchased first.
* My favorite line of the show was the rep from Stew Mac who stopped by, looked at my work and said "Where did you come from?!!!", he very graciously gave us some snakewood bridge pins for the fanned fret which I dropped on.
* I did not meet one person who was not nice, which given the size of the show is a little unusual (I used to do comdex every year so trust me I know). There was one who strummed a guitar and said he didn't like the sound to which my wife replied "how can you hear it??" but he was the only one.
* Alot of us where amused by people who would walk up, strum the guitar at the 3rd fret with their thumb and comment on how the guitar sounded, half the time we had to speak up to heard over the din.
It will be interesting to see what the others who attended thought, it was a good show, we learned alot. Got some good exposure and made some new friends which in the end is the best thing that can happen.
I'll dig through pictures tonight and see what's postable from what we have...
Cheers All...
-Paul-
Login
Register
FAQ
