Anyone ever sold at a guitar show?

[Brad737]

Hello all,

My wife and I are about to start some home renovations, and even though I have been selling a few guitars to sort of clean out the basement, I'd still like to thin the herd a bit. FWIW, I'm down to 35 guitars from 42, so you'll understand that storage space has run out.

Which leads me to my question. There's a guitar show coming up this weekend, and dealer tables are $80. I'm tempted to reserve a table and bring along 5 or 6 guitars to sell. However, most of them are fairly high-dollar guitars. With the economy, I have a feeling I'll have a lot of folks checking out my guitars, and not actually making any sales, only exposing some highly collectible guitars to tire kickers who may not treat my instruments with kid gloves.

Have any of you tried manning a booth at a guitar show? Any success? I'm tempted, just to save on ebay/Paypal's exhorbitant fees. But it seems like it may be a lot of work for nothing, and possible damage to my guitars.

Thanks,
Brad

 

[wardog]

I have not, but your assessment is spot on. My experience in going to them has not been great. Folks are looking for a windfall for substandard stuff and the good stuff sometimes is not for sell. Which is my issue, stuff is generally not priced to sell. Gear tends to go quicker than someone's prize guitars. I actually stop going a few years back because all i did was pay admission to look at folks gear. I can do that on the internet for free.

 

[ColonelForbin]

pay admission to look at folks gear. I can do that on the internet for free.

Yeah, the internet has definitely changed the shopping options for nice guitars! I've noticed a lot of companies are selling their gear via Reverb.com; I went to look at PRS guitars in person at Chicago Music Exchange on Tuesday; I had been looking at the photos on their website, and noticed their listing are also on Reverb for the same guitars.

Here's another interesting note- American Musical and Zzounds are the same company; or at least, they are selling the same guitars, IE, identical serial #'s with the same photos, tweaked slightly to fit the format of the different websites.

I was looking at a 30th custom 24; thought I was comparing two different guitars, though noting they looked so similar! I realized that both websites were advertising the same serial#; they were just offering different payment plans.

Though, I do prefer looking through the used / vintage listings. New guitars are nice, but deals on nice guitars that happen to be used are nicer; especially when the price is sweet..

 

[MikeD]

My experience with shows has been nothing but negative. I've only gone to them as a buyer and I don't think I've ever bought anything other than picks or strings.

Lots of junk at or above retail prices and the quality gear is crazy expensive.