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- The quiet time was mostly well observed by the stands. How else can you sell amps other than play through them? The air horn was a great idea. I'm pretty sure the ACS audio guys did a roaring trade at the show. I kept my plugs in all the time apart from quiet times and when I was actually playing through an amp to test it out.
- The curry was brilliant and amazing value. I just waited until 2pm until the queue died down.
- A floorplan would be great...even a downloadable one for a phone or to print one off.
- Having a huge stand with great prices in the middle of the venue (looking at you PMT) dig cause a lot of congestion and I felt a bit sorry for some of the smaller stands around it who didn't seem to be getting much of a look in.
- Birmingham is a good place to have it. If this were in London I wouldn't come. It was less than 2hrs drive each way from Manchester and I didn't have to pay to park (ended up about 400m from the venue, so not a long walk). In London I'd have to book an advance train ticket, pay to get to the venue and would get charged more like £8 for my lunch. I'm pretty sure you wouldn't see may dealers from north of Birmingham attending either.
- I didn't care about the acoustics, but I was glad to see they had a separate room.
Overall, an excellent show and well put together . Congratulations to @Jason and crew. Keep doing what you're doing. I would say minor tweaks only until it completely outgrows its success. What dates have you tentatively booked for next year?Rift Amplification
Brackley, Northamptonshire
www.riftamps.co.uk
The Show at New Bingly Hall may not be 100% ideal but it is a lot better than many of the alternatives.
Show me another show that has such a fun atmosphere, cheap entry and for the most part free parking.
The venue owners organise the catering and the food is fantastic (unbeatable for the price) and the tea and coffee are great considering it's 50p a cup
Having catering and parking that doesn't sting the pocket too much is great because it leaves more money to spend with the exhibitors or on things that you would enjoy more once you got them home.
I have done lots of London shows in the past and watched as the price and duration escalated out of proportion for our interests.
The London Guitar Show went from being a fun consumer show on 2 days to a gradually more and more corporate affair that did little or nothing to enhance the experience for the public but made it almost impossible to do for a small maker, luthier, seller etc.
Also the forced move from Wembley Conference Centre to Excell escalated the costs for exhibitors and visitors alike
Adding an education day was the first change they did and it may have ben nice for the school-kids but you weren't going to sell anything on the day if you were a high end product maker .
Adding a extra trade only day (and involving the MIA /Music Industries Association) also did nothing for the independent shop or maker who wasn't going to have any interest at all . It just meant
1) another day away from your workshop or store so you were losing money or productivity
2) more charges for your stand as you are showing at a show for twice the length of time as before
3) additional hotel/travelling/paying for meals for yourself and /or staff that you can maybe not justify or afford.
The final nail in the coffin was the MIA thinking it was recreating NAMM /Frankfurt Messe and insisting on a no sales at the show policy.
Years ago we had a good time at Music Live back in 1999 (I believe Jason was involved with that show too) and we had one of the cheaper stands in the side hall.
Many guitars have a re-sale value. Some you'll never want to sell.
Stockist of: Earvana & Graphtech nuts, Faber Tonepros & Gotoh hardware, Fatcat bridges. Highwood Saddles.
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As soon as you get off the Tube network though you will probably lose out on people who will come if it's more central. If you do something in some parts of outer London, you might as well be doing it in Birmingham. It would take me nearly as long to get to some of the places you listed as it did to Birmingham.
I think you could maybe find a smaller venue in London for an acoustic show. I didn't go so I'm not sure how good last year's Olympia one was, but the one the year before with Doyle Dykes and Albert Lee was good. It's a question of scale though. I doubt the likes of Doyle Dykes are going to be cheap. You would need to sell a lot of tickets.
I don't think you are easily going to cover the whole country with a single show. You didn't go from London because of the distance, and someone else said something similar earlier in the thread. I haven't been in previous years - again mainly because of the distance. Even if you could find a suitable, and suitably priced, venue in London, other people then wouldn't come. Someone else from Manchester said that London would be too far from them earlier in the thread. You aren't going to cover the whole country with one show.
3 or 4 good regional shows might the answer - maybe with slightly different exhibitors. In the South you might lose some of the Northern shops, but I've seen Guitar Village and Ivor Mairants at London shows in the past. They might be interested in one closer to them where they don't have to pay hotel bills for their staff. If Jason wants to take on someone to organise one in the South for him and build on his name, contacts and reputation it might be easier than starting from scratch. Given the issues in London, I don't know if there would be a good venue somewhere like Reading that has good train links. Bristol might be a possibility but you are getting a long way from London again.
Very well done @Jason
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The suburb venues are also a nightmare - I have looked and looked, they are affordable but horrible or great and unaffordable.
Please don't take this the wrong way, but after 20 years of doing shows in Birmingham, Manchester and London, the people that live in London are so lazy its untrue, everyone else in the UK will travel, very few in London will go if its not on their tube line. Every busy London show is full of people that have travelled in, my MPX show was at the Emirates Stadium and 80% of the visitors come from outside of London.
*An Official Foo-Approved guitarist since Sept 2023.
I'm glad you and James had a good time, my show rig was one of your amps plus John's Junkyard Dog
I've done Bristol too, not great
They are suitable for table top shows, but thats not want I want to do
I had to laugh recently, I had a company (with someone else) called UK Guitar Shows that did the Bristol Guitar Show, there is a new company now called Guitar Shows UK doing The Bristol Guitar Show
I mean come on, don't take the p*ss, think of your own name
the idea of regional shows won't work, already get 100% of some companies show budget, there aren't enough "other" companies to go round, and I don't want to go smaller, I'm aiming for bigger.
*An Official Foo-Approved guitarist since Sept 2023.
Since then we have had the vintage/used based stores, mainly in the north and now Kempton - So yes we can find faults with The Guitar Show but by a long way it is the best we have - it works well for what is after all a 'cottage industry' - Not sure were some of these stats come from but I heard the other day that the musical instrument industry is small than the sales of Tesco's bake beans