Fretboard Summit Chicago: Aug 23-25, 2024 - Exhibiting Luthiers

[jasonv]

The Fretboard Journal's annual Fretboard Summit takes place August 23-25, 2024 at Chicago's Old Town School of Folk Music.

By design, this is a pretty unique festival: It happens to be the Midwest's largest showcase of lutherie, but there are also multiple concerts, master classes, oral histories and interactive workshops going on multiple stages at any one time. Even if you're not guitar shopping, there is plenty to do.

Mainly, it's a pretty special opportunity to meet legendary players and builders you've admired for years in a unique setting.

There are around 80 exhibitors, including small-batch luthiers and some carefully selected bigger companies (Taylor, Collings, Martin, Yamaha, etc).

We just posted the initial list of luthiers exhibiting this year here:
https://fretboardsummit.org/luthiers


Among the exhibitors: Noemi, Bashkin, Baranik, Cirrus, Greenfield, Kostal, R. Robinson, Shock the Fox, Paul Woolson and many others.

The music lineup this year is also pretty special: Joe Henry, Blake Mills, Colin Hay, Valerie June, Adam Levy, Jake Eddy, Molly Miller, and many more. Everyone is going to go home feeling pretty inspired.

Hope to see some of you there.

[TomB'sox]

Originally Posted by jasonv

The Fretboard Journal's annual Fretboard Summit takes place August 23-25, 2024 at Chicago's Old Town School of Folk Music.

By design, this is a pretty unique festival: It happens to be the Midwest's largest showcase of lutherie, but there are also multiple concerts, master classes, oral histories and interactive workshops going on multiple stages at any one time. Even if you're not guitar shopping, there is plenty to do.

Mainly, it's a pretty special opportunity to meet legendary players and builders you've admired for years in a unique setting.

There are around 80 exhibitors, including small-batch luthiers and some carefully selected bigger companies (Taylor, Collings, Martin, Yamaha, etc).

We just posted the initial list of luthiers exhibiting this year here:
https://fretboardsummit.org/luthiers


Among the exhibitors: Noemi, Bashkin, Baranik, Cirrus, Greenfield, Kostal, R. Robinson, Shock the Fox, Paul Woolson and many others.

The music lineup this year is also pretty special: Joe Henry, Blake Mills, Colin Hay, Valerie June, Adam Levy, Jake Eddy, Molly Miller, and many more. Everyone is going to go home feeling pretty inspired.

Hope to see some of you there.

Sounds like an amazing event!

[jasonv]

August 1 update: We now all have ticket tiers available purchase, including the guitar expo-only tickets for folks who just want to shop/demo new guitars and not attend workshops, panels or concerts.

https://fretboardsummit.org/tickets

This event has snowballed into one of the largest boutique guitar shows in recent memory, featuring 80 luthiers and exhibitors. We have solo builders like Jason Kostal, Noemi, and Woolson, along with a handful of select bigger batch builders like Gallagher, Martin, Santa Cruz, and Collings.

For anyone who signs up for an all-access pass, it's also a rare opportunity to learn from folks like Bob Taylor, Martin's CEO Thomas Ripsam, and repair gurus like TJ Thompson and Joe Glaser.

Huge thanks to all who have already signed up. We have attendees coming from Europe, Australia and Asia. It's going to be an amazing weekend.

As I've said elsewhere, you can stay anywhere you like in Chicago as this event isn't tied to a single hotel. Three-day passes should sell out soon, so act fast if you want to go that route.