[Darkstar860]

What do you guys think of trying to coordinate a weekend each year where we can all get together and jam and try each others gear and hang for a weekend or something. With the Dead theres so much different gear and were all after a certain tone or this or that. This would save us all money and time if ya think about it ! Plus getting to jam with some of yall would be awesome ! Itd give all of us an opportunity that we dont always have with all this gear, the music and the jams. May get some of us out of shells for a weekend too.

What would we call this event ? So many good names

Take care

[lightningbolt]

Great idea but not a totally original thought. Hard Truckers produced a conference in NJ about a dozen years ago....unfortunately I do not believe there was ever a follow up event.
A few Amp manufacturers showed up, Lieber guitars and a few other gear companies and some local dead bands played.
I like your idea better.

See thread: viewtopic.php?f=343&t=10521&p=98794&hil ... ues#p98794

[Darkstar860]

We could do it grass roots. We dont really need the companies there per say. We just need their gear there and we all own pretty much every piece of gear we ever talk about on here. So just letting each other try out each others amps and jam and connect etc. Sorry if im reiterating. Just think this could be a LOT of fun. Us Dead players dont have a Guitar Center to go to to try out this gear and also it takes more than 5 mins of jamming with this equipment to see if ya really want it etc. So i see a weekend as giving everyone more than enough time to try gear, jam, hang, make contacts etc. Maybe this could become a reality !

I wish i hadnt missed the one you speak of, i would of loved to have gone.

[Jon S.]

It's a good thought and one others (myself included) have raised here in the past. The problem is the logistics are likely insurmountable. Where? East coast? You just lose at least half of the possible attendees. West coast? You lose the other half. At a hotel? Who's setting it up and putting his credit card down on the conference room for the jam? Someone's home (not mine, and I'm guessing not yours, either)? And how many attendees to make it worthwhile? I participated in scheduling and helping run several similar TGP "demo and sell" gatherings. It was difficult getting a critical mass of people to participate in those and the TGP has orders of magnitude more people than here. So, sorry to be a wet blanket but I just don't see it happening (though I'll be happy to have you prove me wrong).

[lbpesq]

A number of years ago, the Alembic forum had an Alembic Gathering in Chicago. Bag End speakers let us use their warehouse and even supplied a 22" cab for the bass players to check out. I'd estimate we had about 20-25 attendees. People made their own arrangements for accommodations. Being that we probably don't have more than 20-25 active members here, (just my uneducated guess), the logistics for a big gathering don't look good. More realistic would be smaller local gatherings. For example, I would be willing to host a gathering in my home studio in the S.F. Bay Area. Another issue is that, being that we are all guitar players for the most part, we would need to have at least a drummer and bass player join us.

Bill, tgo

[tdcrjeff]

I was in a band about 10 years ago with a Rickenbacker enthusiast. He was active in their community and they would have gatherings like this once or twice a year. Mostly SoCal people, but a few would fly in from around the country. I attended two of them as a drummer. First one was at large club/bar on a weekend day. As I recall it was not really a sports bar so there weren't many regular type customers, it was like it was a private event without actually being a private event. I don't think there was much (if any) cost nor accommodation with the location. The bar was open for business and I think they served food too. About 20 people and they all brought their various Rics (guitars and basses) and gushed over each others. There was a Google Doc or some such ahead of time where people signed up for what songs they wanted to play and sing but of course at the actual event a lot of that went out the window. More of a jam than an equipment event, but certainly a lot of looking at everybody's guitars. The second one was in the large room at rehearsal studio which was a little smaller event but folks also had to kick in to pay for the room, maybe $20 each.

Here's a video from the first one at the bar. I'm not drumming, I'm shooting the video. Six 12-strings at once.

[lbpesq]

Here’s the group shot from the Chicago Alembic gathering at Bag End in 2007:

Bill, tgo

[Jon S.]

One of our local The Gear Page get-togethers. I'm on the far right with my Philtone Jerrycaster. Venue was one of the guys' pool club. Lots of amps, testing, and jamming inside the clubhouse. I will never forget the Fuchs ODS 50 I played through - so fine (Robben Ford/Dumblish tones).

[Jon S.]

Before The Gear Page was called that, it was named Birds and Moons, but yet before that, The PRS Forum. I joined in '99 - one of the first 100 members (now they have tens if not hundreds of thousands). We had several events associated with The PRS Forum. After some years, PRS took the whole thing over, renaming it the PRS Experience. Here's a shot from our first year.

[Jon S.]

And finally, one of our Northern Virginia USA Reverend guitar owners' meet-ups. This one was at my house. I'm the tall guy in the middle. I had 5 USA Revs then. I have only one left now, but it's a winner (2nd pic below).