The UK Guitar Show - London - Courtesy of Guitarist + Future Publishing

Winny_Pooh

Yeah, you could buy. They had one regular dealer downstairs too. 

Whitecat

guitars4you said:

Could you buy at the show - I'm talking new Fender, PRS, Takamine and other major exhibitors

Okay Gibson + Marshall not there - But looks like no major dealer there as a show sponsor to display such products of their own back - ie the likes of PMT, GAK, Anderstons or GuitarGuitar - ie te major South West dealers

Fender wasn’t selling but Takamine & PRS were.  

Marshall was definitely there... not sure about whether they were selling or not though, not really on my radar.

GAK seemed to be sponsoring/supplying individual booths - more than one, but Ibanez was the main one they were affiliated with I think. Loads of banners up anyway. Perhaps some demo stock was borrowed from them? It was nothing interesting to me so didn’t check out what the arrangements were...

Whitecat

Winny_Pooh said:

Yeah, you could buy. They had one regular dealer downstairs too. 

Yeah, it was Promenade Music though from Morecambe! Strange for them to want to do a show in London, but hey, why not... maybe they just fancied a weekend away.

LordOxygen

Marshall did have a stand.

Seymour1

Whitecat said:

Winny_Pooh said:

Yeah, you could buy. They had one regular dealer downstairs too. 

Yeah, it was Promenade Music though from Morecambe! Strange for them to want to do a show in London, but hey, why not... maybe they just fancied a weekend away.

Promenade music have had stands at the separate Olympia shows for the last few years so they are show regulars.

Blackstar were selling amps from their stand but while Orange had amps on their stands they had to sell through their distributor (Promenade Music) (who didn't have stock) so staff from the Orange stand had to carry the amp downstairs to the Promenade stand and get Promenade to take payment. (However Orange could sell promotional material: mugs, t-shirts etc form their own stand,

Seymour1

I thought that the venue was much better than Olympia so combining the two shows was a good move. Even at busy times it didn't seem to be as crowded as at Olympia. However most of the floor space over the three floors seemed to be used so there doesn't seem to be a lot of potential for increasing  the number of stands at future events.

I think that there are two areas where this event is different to shows like the Kempton Park one:

1. Big names (Fender, PRS & Ibanez) have their own stands However Yamaha were at the Olympia shows last year and I don't recall seeing them this year

2. Masterclasses and workshops are really good. I got a weekend ticket at discount rate and probably wouldn't have bothered going back on the Sunday if not for the workshops. However details of which days these were on didn't go on the website until quite near the show which doesn't help on planning which day to go for if you only want to go on one day

Overall I thought it was good value for money and will probably go back again next year.

crunchman

I didn't go this year.  I had quite a lot on, and it's not like it's only 3 miles from home like Olympia.

The bass part of it is quite big, and there was a discount on weekend ticket prices for Basschat members.  For bass players it seems to be the biggest show of the year, where the Birmingham guitar show seems to be better for guitarists.