Summer is upon us and I noticed that we haven't posted anything here in a long time! We are still very busy with the Holy Grail Guitar Show preparations, and we've neglected the EGB agenda and site a bit in consequence. I'll try and come back to it more often - we are continuing to welcome more members (again, we might be a bit late in posting them here, due to the HGGS work load). As the show preparations hopefully will steer into calmer waters now, we can come back and work on the EGB agenda again. CITES among other things has become a topic we want to address - the travel associated with the show has shown us the necessity for good up to date information about regulations, resources and where to go with questions.
The show. We're just coming up for air now - the exhibitor list is pretty much complete and we're full. We are looking forward to welcoming more than 110 luthiers to Berlin! We started out with thinking of maybe 50-80 max, but it has grown, not to say exploded! This will be one of the largest boutique shows in the world, and certainly a first for Europe! We are now focusing on PR and on getting the details for the show nailed down. You may have visited the new show website (thank you Emma and Juha for the mad effort in getting it out!). If not, go there and check it out - it will have updates and the full program for the show. Kora is doing a great job with the facebook luthier profiles and Tania is juggling everything behind the scenes. I will post background information here, about the show concept and the EGB Symposium on Friday (which will not be open to the public and is therefore not mentioned on the show website). So please stay tuned and come back often - we have discontinued using the newsletter due to spam problems - so this will be the place to get updates!
Michael Spalt
president EGB