2026 String Break guitar show

barnstorm

Hadn't noticed that tickets for this went on sale a few weeks ago. 

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/string-break-2-tickets-1981476403262

25 luthiers exhibiting this time. Same venue as last year, so probably mainly of interest to the tFB's northerners.

tomjax

Anymore FBs heading to String Break 2 today? I managed to get a ticket!

barnstorm

Let us know what it's like. Some interesting people exhibiting this year.

tomjax

For me, String Break 2 was unique and frustrating in equal parts. It's a great opportunity to meet and chat with some of the best guitar builders out there. 

But in terms of trying out guitars from the builders - completely unworkable from my point of view. The venue is too small, meaning it's cramped, noisy and lacking real space to try guitars. This year they set up two playing booths slightly away from the main floor, but the background noise levels were still so high that it made it  impossible to hear or evaluate the sound of a guitar.

The lack of space also meant that each builder could only showcase one guitar. They got to swap them out half way through the day for a second guitar.

The workshops were bit of a non-event; only 30mins in length, and nothing of any substance shared, although it was great to discover Will McNicol, a new player to me and his showcase piece during his workshop of Radiohead's Everything in its right place was sensational.

Check it out on YouTube!


The 3 performance slots in the evening were pretty good, Adam Miller (also new to me) is an incredibly talented player and did a fabulous 45min set.

Food wise, there was only one small caterer serving food, so the queues were pretty long and slow. Great beer at the Rooster brewery tho! 

Overall, I'd say it's mostly a socal event, and for the builders I'm sure it was a great weekend mixing with their peers. As a punter, I found it mostly frustrating to be so close to a whole load of amazing guitars but not really being able to enjoy trying them out.

I bumped into a couple of mates which made it worth the visit, and I enjoyed the performance side of the show. But as I said, the venue didn't do justice to the beautiful instruments on display.

The highlight guitar for me was from Oska Burman; just beautiful craftsmanship and aesthetics. I did play it but really couldn't tell you what it sounded like!

barnstorm

Cheers, appreciate the report.

It does seems a mistake not to have enough room to allow the builders to display multiple guitars. I'd have found that frustrating, too. Hopefully if the show did well again this year they'll be able to look at a different venue with more space for next time – maybe at a location a bit closer to me!

Not sure how you resolve the background noise/opportunity to try guitars dilemma, though, when the guitars are mostly acoustics and can't be tried through headphones. However spacious the venue is, the organiser's going to want to fill it close to capacity to cover their costs and make a profit, and I assume erecting lots of soundproof booths would be very expensive.

barnstorm

Found this little video from McLaren Guitars for anyone else who's interested in seeing what the show looked like this year: https://www.instagram.com/mcclarenguitars/reel/DY-z0VPsrr5/

tomjax

I agree, and not sure what the answer is either. I used to attend a few hifi shows years ago, and they were usually hosted in big hotels. In addition to the main exhibition area they would book out rooms in the hotel for demo suites for each brand, so you could listen to them independently.

String Break could never attract the numbers to make that work financially, but there must be a better option than a taproom location.

Maybe I just had the wrong expectations of the day. As a social event it works OK.

earwighoney

tomjax said:

The highlight guitar for me was from Oska Burman; just beautiful craftsmanship and aesthetics. I did play it but really couldn't tell you what it sounded like!

Oska posts on another forum I frequent, and he's an absolute gent in addition to being a very talented luthier.  Great to see him get a mention here.