Guitar shops in Dallas?

Unsure when you're going, but the biggest and best "guitar shop" in America hands down is the Dallas Market Hall downtown during Dallas International Guitar Festival weekend.

This year's DIGF is May 3-5. Carondelet will have a double booth with about 20 guitars and basses ready for hands-on test drives. There are typically a few hundred exhibitors. Here's the hall's floorplan to give you an idea - each of those booths represent exhibition space occupied by retailers, vintage dealers and/or manufacturers like myself.



Jimmy (host) published this year's entertainment slate a few days ago ... there are two outdoor stages and a main inside stage.



I will say it again ... this is THE BEST guitar lover event in America. Even NAMM pales in comparison IMHO.

Tone Shop Guitars has 3 locations around dfw
And there is Charley's which is a small shop that does work on a lot of professional musicians gear.

My buddy Larry Mitchell is performing!

As I've told you before, Houston had a guitar show years ago but the market didn't support it. Why? Serious buyers knew bigger annual shows that recruited more abroad dealers and subsequently more inventory were the short drive to DFW. Houston subsequently died on the vine because all it attracted were people who browsed and ogled but didn't buy. The buyers went to Dallas in the spring and Arlington in the fall.

Arlington, TX's "Guitarlington," is the oldest guitar show in America and historically among the biggest, so they established DFW as Texas's guitar show epicenter. I say "historically" because that show is moving to Mesquite this year in order to try and breathe new life in it. Guitarlington is dying on the vine and the death has been exponential in recent years. Why? Because the Dallas show grew bigger and in ways that appealed to more patrons, players and music fans alike. Multiple stages of live music. And instruments that aren't just vintage instruments that cost five or six figures.

I've said forever if you want a minty clean all original investment grade pre-CBS Strat or McCarty era Gibson with OHSC and all case candy, you go to Guitarlington. If you just want a good player-grade Strat or Les Paul that will serve as a reliable tool and workhorse for many years, you go to DIGF.

That's why Carondelet exhibits at DIGF and we only attend Guitarlington if we even attend at all.

He’s a great player and even better person.

Check out Tone Shop

I'd love to see Gary Hoey.