humidifying a laminate

Yesterday I was with my daughter at a birthday party and the girl's uncle was there to play happy birthday on his guitar. He'd only been playing 2 months or so and had an inexpensive laminate yamaha guitar (less than 200USD). I noticed when he put it back in his padded gig bag that he put in a hanging soundhole humidifier. He's been a professional singer for years and finally figured out that he needs to do more than just sing (I won't argue about a guitar being a better professional mainstream choice).

Isn't this overkill for a laminate? Or something more guitar specific?

I was wondering the same thing. I've generally heard it argued that since the body is not solid wood and that the laminate is not seriously affected by temperature/humidity change that it is not needed. So by that logic, do we only humidify solid wood ukes just for the body? On laminated ukes, the neck, head, fret board and bridge are all solid wood, shouldn't they need humidification? If anything, I would think that humidification would help preserve the integrity of the glued pieces in the body and the bridge to the top as well as the proper fit of the frets to the fret board.

Laminates still can separate at the seams/joints, which is where 95% of your acoustic instruments in general will have issues. I've had a laminate string bass and laminate tenor uke both have seams split apart due to the weather. Both were also very easy, and common, fixes.

So yes, ANY acoustic instrument can benefit from a humidifier.

for a laminate instrument, i think it would be more for the neck and fret integrity to humidify