A Kiwi in Shanghai - Part 2

Day two of the fair, but a quick little snapshot of Shanghai. Unfortunately I was too freaked to actually take a snapshot. A taxi ride is something akin to a roller coaster except with the very real concern of death. Lanes are just guides. You want to pass someone, you go around them. Someone’s coming in the other direction, fine go faster and toot at them to get out of the way!

So a few highlights from the show.

• I met with Jorge Julia from Alhambra. We had a good chat about how things are in Europe etc. Saw a couple of cool new guitars. What would you say to a Spanish made steel string for under $1k?

• Talked to Harvey from KG Instruments. They’ve got this beautiful new series of violins and cellos called the 500 series made with European woods. Unsure how much they’ll be yet, but he had already sold out of the violins by the time I got there so they must be amazing value.
• I had a good wonder around. There are stands where you can you buy wood blanks for violins, guitars and even piano sound boards. A stand where you can buy/rent CNC machines. And a stand where you can buy guitar kits. What more do you need… it’s probably there anyway.

• Watching a Chinese hard rock band on one of the stages. Funnily enough there’s music getting played everywhere here. I’ll try and get some videos up once I get back to NZ. The hard rock one didn’t come out so well with my digital camera microphone.

• And hands down today… Tonight I went to dinner with the guys from Farida, and the distributors from the England, India, and Malaysia. A traditional Shanghaiese banquet which was awesome, but it was awesome to hit around some ideas and share war stories with the other distributors. 

Until tomorrow…

Post by David Love