Im thinking of making the drive from Portland Or.to Sonoma for this festival. Im also interested in learning as much as I can about guitar building. Is this festival as great as it looks?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Don Diego De Vargas(3dv),

I should have answered this earlier. I beg your pardon. we live about 25 miles from the festival, but I've never been. But, I have some band mates, who are even more GAS afflicted than I, who have been there and give it a big thumbs up. The area is beautiful, the guitars will be unaffordable, but the wine should take the edge off. It's very hard to buy a bad bottle of wine here. Lord knows I've tried. I basically swore off guitar lust fests about four years ago, when I reached my saturation point. If I had "discretionary" income, I'd drive over to Healdsburg the minute the place opened. and if you're that close, the Schoenburg shop in Tiburon is about another 30 miles or so toward SF. It's a little festival of its own. tom

Thanks Tom, I got a couple guitars on the way so I should be immune to gas for this one. Im more interested in trying and seeing as many different builders workas I can. I got into handmade guitars late(only in the past 5 years)so Im playing catchup.I love that part of the country(and the wine is pretty good to) so Im going to try to make it,thanks for the input.

DDDV, I went some years ago (from Dallas) and found it quite educational. Most of the usual suspects are there, and more. The only negative experience I had was with a couple of luthiers who seemed to be interested in talking only with known dealers. Needless to say, I won't be buying their guitars. Others, like Jim Olson, were real gentlemen.

Plan on staying for a couple of days if you could. They also have nice clinics during the day and great concerts in the evenings. Oh yes, see Sideways before you go, take a carpetbag full of Benjamins, drink the excellent wines, and you too could become a Sonomaniac.

Thankfully for you folks, visiting, or even moving to, the wine country doesn't make you a maniac such as I. We came here out of necessity when I got a good paying job while we had four kids in college simultaneously. Trust me, the wine did not weight in the balance (although a nice bottle of zin would go good right about now), and if we'd had our druthers we'd never have left Jackson Hole. As always, God was wiser than we were and three of our offspring found superb men and women, respectively, to marry, which could never have taken place had we not come here. sorry. partly off topic, but, hey. tom

I work just one freeway exit up from the festival, but I've never been because we're usually on vacation at that time of year. We wont be this year, but I don't know that I'll go. Looking at all those fancy instruments that I can't buy, or even play for that matter as I'm left handed, doesn't really sit well with me. Lots of great workshops and performances though.

To be honest, I get the feeling that there's too much of a boutique "fingerstyle" thing going on there. I consider "fingerstyle" to refer to how I eat my food. Playing guitar, I either flatpick or fingerpick, and my guitars are cherished tools for making music, not status symbol statements of my lifestyle. And yes, my opinion is a bit lame, but at least it's mine.