Minnesota State Fair Obeservations

My wife and I made our annual trek to the Minnesota State Fair yesterday. If you have been there, the only location with musical instruments for sale is the Coliseum. Three local music stores rent a booth (I don't even want to think about how much that costs), and of those, two had ukulele displays.

People were swarming the ukuleles, and I saw a number of them being carried around the fair.

One company in particular was selling plastic smiley face Mahalo ukuleles...I thought Mahalo dealt only in wood, and as I looked on Amazon this morning, all I could find was wood versions of that ukulele.

The other company was selling Dolphins and Sharks, primarily.

(The state fair is where you are willing to drop $50 on a purchase, but are probably not walking out with a $250 ukulele).

So...two thoughts. First, someone could create a ukulele booth selling only ukuleles, and make a pretty good profit. It would be good for consumers if the ukuleles were of good quality and set up properly (I doubt either music company does this for basic models). Second, local I ukulele clubs should be leaving some flyers/cards/posters with the ukulele displays.

The store selling the Mahalos also had a Magic Flea banjo ukulele, the first time I have seen that model. It was really nice and light!

And the winner at the talent show last night for the pre-teen division was a duo of 12 year-old girls. One of the girls played the ukulele.

The local leader of our Twin Cities Ukulele Club was informed by one of the companies that they had sold (just that company) over 320 ukulele during the State Fair. If music companies are at your state fair, that might be a good place to share some ukulele club flyers and so on.