Well we have finally finished our festival run. We attended nine festivals across 3 states this year with record breaking (highest and lowest) individual festival sales. We battled storms, heat waves, fog and gale force winds. We attended drought stricken and fire ravaged areas and somehow Wildwood Instrument's travelling shope' survived it all. We have sold out of quite a few products and with the post festival orders coming in, stocks may not last much longer! Some more friends have been made and plenty more people have acquired a beautiful new bundle of joy (an instrument). Thank you to all those of you.
After relocating to Melbourne 3 months ago Wildwood Instruments has finally found a new home. A lovely factory in Albert Street in the heart of Brunswick. It will be some months before we open as some major renovations are required, but we will keep you up to date on what's going on.
Ohh and yes, you will be invited to the opening!

Labels: Festivals

Mount Beauty Music Festival 2007
Originally uploaded by wildwood instruments.

Greetings from High Country Victoria! We're having a rather wet but enjoyable weekend at the foot of Mount Bogong, the state's highest mountain. We're all set up for the day, and despite the rain, we're quite grateful it's not windy. Fingers crossed!

Labels: Festivals

Wow! What an amazing festival the National Folk Festival was. We broke all records selling 98 instruments over the long weekend. Some new owners include Steve and Ros Barnes, Loaded Dog and Transylvaniacs, to name a few. Unfortunately we have sold out of a number of products, including deluxe mandolin, fiddle, large xylophone, bodhrans, etc. It will be awhile before any more are made as we are still in negotiations with the real estate agent over a factory in Brunswick. We will keep you posted as to how the shop and workshop plans are going.
With one more festival to go, the Mount Beauty Music Muster should be a nice end to the season. We will be there on Sunday 29th April. Hope to see you there.

Labels: Festivals

National Folk Festival 2007
Originally uploaded by wildwood instruments.

Greetings from Canberra! As always, it's great to be at the National, where everyone's got a silly hat on, and having a wonderful time. "What a great way spend Easter" indeed! We have you're having a fantastic weekend!

Labels: Festivals

The Basin Music Festival 2007
Originally uploaded by wildwood instruments.

Greetings from the Dandenongs, Victoria! It took us about an hour to get here this morning, and well what can we say, the rain follows us wherever we go! Hopefully the clouds will gently blow over and make way for a better day tomorrow.

Labels: Festivals

Blue Mountains Music Festival 2007
Originally uploaded by wildwood instruments.

Greetings from Katoomba, New South Wales! We arrived yesterday, and have set up for the weekend. It's been a rather windy morning, but the crowds are out, so come up to the Blue Mountains if you're close by!

Labels: Festivals

Port Fairy Folk Festival 2007
Originally uploaded by wildwood instruments.

Greetings from Port Fairy, Victoria! It's great to be back after we missed last year's folk festival because of the road crash. The sun's out, people are about, so we're set for a wonderful weekend!

Labels: Festivals

The Sydney Road Street Party, part of the Brunswick Music Festival, was an unbelieveable hive of activity. Our stall was packed for the whole 7 hours of the festival, with people lining up to get in.
It was also the launch of our market research survey. We are proud to announce that Wildwood Instruments will be teaming up with The DIY Wood Workspace and offering classes in woodworking and instrument building and also offering workshop space for hire. We are looking to set up in the Brunswick area of Melbourne and are seeking input from anyone interested in our new venture. We have an online survey that you can fill out, and tell us exactly what you would like to gain from it.
Wildwood Instruments will be at the Port Fairy Folk Festival over the coming Labour Day long weekend. You will be able to find us on the Galaxo Green in the main part of town (not inside the festival arena). Oh and yes, we will have The Best of While and Matthews CD for sale at our stall. Why are we selling it, I hear you ask? Well, it just so happens that Chris While is playing her Wildwood Travel Guitar on the front (and back) cover of the album. It's a fantastic album and well worth a look (and listen!).

Labels: Festivals

The Cobargo Folk Festival was a fantastic weekend of musical delights. Here is a pic of Judy Small cranking out a tune on a Wildwood travel guitar for the Cobargo fans, after giving us a rather nice plug. Good on ya Judy! The Beez (Germany), another headlining act from the festival, are now the proud owners of a travel guitar too. All in all it was a great, well-organised and friendly festival. Hope to see you all there again next year.
This coming weekend is The Sydney Road Street Party, a part of the Brunswick Music Festival. You can find the Wildwood stall between Phoenix St and Albert St on the west side of Sydney Rd, just look for our marquee with the big guitar on it. See you there on Sunday 4th March between 12 noon and 7pm.

Labels: Festivals

Bruthen Blues Festival was hit with a heat wave on the weekend! Saturday and Sunday was well over 40 degrees, so they say that only about half the crowd turned up for the festival. Oh well, at least the fires that had been threatening the town previously had been taken care of.
From thunder storms at Goulburn to heat waves at Bruthen, I wonder how next weekend will go at Cobargo Folk Festival.

Labels: Festivals

We attended the Australian Blues Festival in Goulburn, NSW on the weekend. After five years of drought it happened to rain while we were there. Saturday was a nice day but Sunday was a wash out! Our marquee was about to sail away. Thanks to 8 Ball Aitken and his manager Bird for helping us pack up when the storm hit! Well I guess the locals were happy about the change in weather.
We will be off to Bruthen Blues Festival in South East Victoria next. I hope the recent bush fires there haven't caused them to sing the Blues... well maybe just a bit!

Labels: Festivals

Greetings from the town of York! We're spending Jeff's birthday at the Jazz Weekend, where we've had heaps of interest in Nick's music instruments. The crowds are out and about after a rather quiet afternoon yesterday when the AFL Grand Final was on. We're just an hour and a half from Perth if you fancy a little music in the park!

Labels: Festivals

It's over three months since we returned from our second annual road trip, and we thought we'd take a look back at all that happened on the road:

Labels: Festivals

Fairbridge Festival
Originally uploaded by wildwood instruments.

Greetings from the historic site of Fairbridge Village, WA! It was a grueling four-day drive from Canberra, but we're finally settled down at the final festival of our road trip. We have sold out of travel guitars, mandolins, large xylophones, guitar stands, and we've been on to a very positive start at Fairbridge. We look forward to seeing Cajun very soon!

Labels: Festivals

Best Stall Award
Originally uploaded by wildwood instruments.

Wildwood Instruments has won the Best Stall Award at the National Folk Festival 2006! Woohoo! We hope everyone's having a great Easter weekend, because we've been enjoying it heaps!

Labels: Festivals

National Folk Festival
Originally uploaded by wildwood instruments.

Greetings from Canberra! We're spending the Easter weekend at the National Folk Festival, and we've been off to a pretty good start! Come see us opposite the Quokka Pavilion if you're at the festival!

Labels: Festivals

Art Centre Sunday Market
Originally uploaded by wildwood instruments.

Greetings from Melbourne! We're here at the Art Centre Sunday Market for the day. It's a cold morning along the Yarra River, but we're tucked right under the bridge, so the crowds are coming along.

Labels: Festivals

Yackandandah Folk Festival
Originally uploaded by wildwood instruments.

Yackandandah, Victoria. We had a fantastic time at the festival this weekend! We can safely say at least one of every instrument was sold today. We have sold out of guitar stands, and only have deluxe mandolins left. The travel guitar is also on its way out! Anyway, it's been an extremely enjoyable weekend, with the town folk showing us a wonderful time. Fingers crossed we'll be back this way next year!

Labels: Festivals

Wildwood Rocks!
Originally uploaded by wildwood instruments.

Well we more rolled actually! The Rocks Market was a little slow for us, as most of the people coming through were tourists (concerned about carrying large instruments home). I don't think there were many musicians in the crowd either.

Our brush with celebritism: John Waters stopped for a chat as he contemplated getting a travel guitar for his child.

On a less than happy note, the van that we purchased only 2 weeks ago has blown a head gasket. Hopefully it will be fixed and back on the road before we head off to the Yackandandah Folk Festival though the mechanic hasn't made any promises.

Labels: Festivals

Greetings from The Rocks, Sydney! We're all set up opposite the Mercantile Hotel for the weekend, and we've got heaps of people coming through all day. If you're in the area, do drop in to say hello, or tell your Sydneysider friends about us!

Labels: Festivals

We have arrived in Sydney for the week, and will be trading at The Rocks markets this weekend, from 1000 to 1700. We will post updates this weekend.

Labels: Festivals

It's been a very enjoyable weekend at the Blue Mountains Music Festival. The sun teased for a minute or two yesterday, but it's cracked through the clouds on this fine Sunday. It was well worth the six-day drive from Perth, with some time for sightseeing.

Labels: Festivals

It's been a swelteringly hot day at the Nannup Music Festival, and it's just begun to cool down for the evening.

Labels: Festivals

We are off on our road trip with the first stop being the Nannup Music Festival. A great way to kick off the tour with a "relatively" local shin dig, before we hit the Nullarbor. A quick trip down south on the WA Labour Day long weekend to get us started and hopefully earn enough to get us over the Bight with those outback petrol prices $$$. We will keep you posted as to how it goes.

Labels: Festivals

Not long now till we hit the road (see post below for festival details). This will be our journal/blog posting place, so visit here regularly to keep abreast of our crazy adventures! The mini pictures to the right (Click on the pics to see the full size version) are going to be updated literally as we take them, so it will be like you are right there with us over the seven weeks! (except you don't have to put up with the flies!)

Labels: Festivals

We are off around Australia again in March and April for the '2006 Australian Tour'. This year we have a few new places to visit as well as some of the old favourites. The itenerary is as follows:

* Nannup Music Festival (WA) - 3rd to 6th March
* Port Fairy Folk Festival (VIC) - 10th to 13th March
* Blue Mountains Music Festival (NSW) - 17th to 19th March
* The Rocks Markets, Sydney (NSW) - 24th to 26th March
* Yackandandah Folk Festival (VIC) - 31st March to 2nd April
* The Arts Centre Sunday Markets, Melbourne (VIC) 9th April
* The National Folk Festival (ACT) - 13th to 17th April
* Fairbridge Festival (WA) - 21st to 23rd April

It's going to be a quick drive across Australia to get from the National in Canberra, to Fairbridge just outside of Perth, in just four days. We will be stopping for petrol and that's about it!

Hope to see you at one of the festivals or markets where you can try out our funky range of instruments. If not, you can always order online to get your Wildwood goodies. Orders, however, will not be filled during March and April while we are away. And of course we are not sure what we will have in stock upon our return (last time it wasn't much!). Restocking can take months so if you're keen, best to get your order in before then.

Things are hectic in the Wildwood workshop at the moment. Many instruments still to be built with only 6 weeks to go! Yikes!

Okay, okay, I'm going back to work now...

Labels: Festivals

After travelling 10,000 km to six fantastic music festivals across the nation, Wildwood Instruments has returned home to Perth. An awesome adventure that could become an annual event for Nick and Jeff.

The last stop was at Fairbridge Festival last weekend. We sold out on what stock we had left and took another bunch of orders to add to the bucket load we already had, enough to keep Wildwood Instruments busy for quite some time.

Thank you to all those people who helped us out along our travels, supplying accommodation and the like. And of course to everyone who supported us by buying an instrument. Thank you so much for making it possible for me to follow my dream and make musical instruments for a living, to be able to provide affordable, beautiful instruments for everyone.

Everyone deserves music in their lives!

Labels: Festivals

Here's the final round of photos from our road trip across Australia. We have photos from three capital cities, three music festivals, and the return trip across the Nullarbor. Go grab yourself a drink and settle at your desk, because you'll be here for some time!

1. Sydney to Australian Capital Territory - 23-24 March 2005. We had our second rainy day in Sydney, followed by clear skies as we left for Canberra. Read a previous entry here.

2. National Folk Festival - 25-28 March 2005. We had a wonderful weekend at the Canberra Exhibition Centre, and met lots of wonderful people along the way. Read about the National here.

3. Canberra - 29-30 March 2005. We took so many photos at the nation's capital, we had to group them in a couple of albums. This one has visits to Parliament House, Old Parliament House and the National Gallery of Australia.

4. North Canberra - 31 March 2005. More photos of Canberra, this time north of Lake Burley Griffin, where we visited Canberra Museum And Gallery, ScreenSound Australia, and National Museum of Australia.

5. Canberra to Snowy Mountains - 1 April 2005. We started out on a very misty Canberra morning towards the Snowy Mountains. It was a very steep and winding drive, but the views were spectacular.

6. The Man From Snowy River Bush Festival - 1-2 April 2005. Our final festival over east, where we sold out of dulcimers. It was a weekend of music and poetry readings.

7. Corryong to Melbourne - 3 April 2005. We visited Jack Riley's grave, the man of whom we had the festival for, and it was a day's drive to Melbourne after. It was good to catch up with friends that evening.

8. Melbourne - 4-9 April 2005. We spent the week in Melbourne, visiting the sights, and soaking in the architecture. Oh, there's also Linda and Kim's dog, Ziggy, who is now second most photographed dog in the world after Cajun.

9. Melbourne to Adelaide - 10 April 2005. The day trip to Adelaide seemed shorter than we thought it would. The latter would be our final city stop before our drive across the Nullarbor.

10. Across The Nullarbor - 11-13 April 2005. It took a day less to cross the Nullarbor, but I took more photos than before. Nevertheless, the Great Australian Bight was breathtaking.

11. Fairbridge Festival - 15-17 April 2005. We've come full circle with this festival. It was our first biggie last year, and it was a good way to end our festival circuit for 2005. Read Nick's round-up here.

Labels: Festivals

Here is another round of photo updates for your viewing. We have uploaded photos taken at the Port Fairy Folk Festival, the Blue Mountains Music Festival, and all the places we visited in between the two festivals. Enjoy!

1. Port Fairy Folk Festival - 12-14 March 2005. To find out about our weekend at the festival, read our update from Melbourne here.

2. Great Ocean Road - 14-15 March 2005. We left Port Fairy for Melbourne via the Great Ocean Road. We ran out of space on my camera here.

3. Melbourne to New South Wales - 15-18 March 2005. It was just a short stop in Melbourne before we hit the road for the Blue Mountains in New South Wales.

4. City of Blue Mountains - 18 March 2005. We just had to visit the sights the day we arrived at the Blue Mountains before we set up for the Blue Mountains Music Festival.

5. Blue Mountains Music Festival - 19-20 March 2005. To find out about our weekend at the festival, read a previous entry here.

6. Sydney - 21-22 March 2005. We spent a few days in Sydney before heading off to Canberra.

We have yet to complete uploading photos to the latter album due to time constraints. We will be leaving Melbourne for Adelaide tomorrow, then begin our trip across the Nullarbor from Monday through to Friday for the Fairbridge Festival in Western Australia!

Labels: Festivals

Photos from the first week of our road trip are now available for viewing.

Over the three photo albums, you'll get to see pictures from the Nannup Music Festival, our four-day drive across the Nullarbor, and our short stop in Adelaide before arriving at Port Fairy.

1. Nannup Music Festival - 4-6 March 2005 To find out about our weekend at the festival, read our previous entry here.

2. Across the Nullarbor - 7-10 March 2005 We had updates while crossing Australia, check them out here.

3. Adelaide to Victoria - 10-11 March 2005 Our short stop in Adelaide gave us a chance for an update, read it here.

Many thanks to Linda and Kim for the use of their computer!

Labels: Festivals

Apologies for the delay in updates. We were unable to provide an update while we were in Canberra due to technical errors on Blogger, but we're back in Melbourne for the week with a double update!

The weather started to make a turn for the better the day we left Sydney, but we had to make haste to Canberra. We were very lucky that our foldable marquee, which had fallen off the roof rack at 100km/h, did not hit any vehicles behind us. Apart from a couple of small tears, it stood well at the following two festivals.

The National Folk Festival in Canberra was an amazing success! We sold out of mandolins in less than an hour, and we're also out of the small xylophone, and travel guitar (unless you're left-handed). However, feel free to make an order when you see us at Fairbridge Festival in less than two weeks, or make an order online.

We also met some wonderful people at the National, and would like to thank Liza and John of Real Ethereal Creations for a fantastic weekend. We also caught up with Ian Champ, who wrote a feature on Nick in the current issue of Trad & Now, The Australian National Folk Magazine.

We couldn't spend the Easter Week in the nation's capital without visiting the sights. We were at Parliament House, Old Parliament House, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Museum And Gallery, ScreenSound Australia, and the National Museum of Australia.

Our next stop after Canberra was across the Snowy Mountains to Corryong in Victoria, where we had The Man From Snowy River Bush Festival. We sold out of dulcimers over the weekend, and enjoyed the music and poetry readings which the high country folk had to offer. Hail the Man from Snowy River!

We will be spending the week in Melbourne before we hit the road and cross the Nullarbor back to Western Australia for the Fairbridge Festival!

Labels: Festivals

We are currently in Sydney after spending the weekend at the Blue Mountains Music Festival of Folk, Roots and Blues. It was another successful festival for Wildwood Instruments, and we'd like to thank the folks in the Blue Mountains for making it so. Like before, we had a great reponse from our visitors about the quality of Nick's musical instruments, and many have become instant dulcimer players after a couple of tries at our stall. We have also sold out of Harpsichimes and Guitar Stands, but we are taking orders online and at the festivals. However, orders will only be shipped after August 2005, as Nick will only begin building new instruments when we return home before May 2005.

It's been rather rainy in Sydney today (and for the rest of our stay), but we got to see the Sydney Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge nevertheless. Other than that, it's just been a rush in the rain through the city streets. Oh, and if you know why the Australian flags are flying at half mast in Sydney, please tell us why. We haven't been able to keep up with the latest news while on the road.

We'll be in Sydney for three nights, and will leave for Canberra on Thursday morning for the National Folk Festival!

Labels: Festivals

We have arrived in Melbourne for a quick visit after an exceptional weekend at the Port Fairy Folk Festival, breaking all records for the Wildwood Instruments stall! We sold out of dulcimers with pick-ups! In fact, we have sold over half our stock of dulcimers so far with four more festivals to go. We have also pretty much sold out of harpsichimes, too. We would like to thank you for supporting Wildwood Instruments and making it such a wonderful experience. We've made new friends, and hope to return next year for the 30th Port Fairy Folk Festival.

At the start of this week, we took the Great Ocean Road from Port Fairy to Melbourne, and visited The Twelve Apostles, The Arch, and London Bridge, among others. It's been busy in Melbourne today, and we head off tomorrow to the Blue Mountains Music Festival of Folk, Roots and Blues for the weekend.

Last but not least, we miss you, Cajun!

Labels: Festivals

We have arrived in Adelaide! Yes, we're finally in the City of Lights, and on schedule, too! We haven't run into any problems, except for faulty door locks, loose bolts on the roof rack, but they got rectified quickly.

The Nullarbor was simply breathtaking. We stopped along the way for photos, and the view from the Great Australian Bight was just AMAZING! We hope the photos will do it some justice.

We also found the Nullarbor Plain in South Australia to be much cleaner than the Highway in Western Australia. Not much roadkill, which saved us of the stench we had crossing WA.

We set up camp early yesterday. Well, it was 8p.m in the evening, but the sun hadn't set, which made us wonder if we set our clocks right. It turned out the sun's out quite a number of hours in SA. Anyway, we're spending this late afternoon in Adelaide, then heading south east tonight.

Tomorrow: Port Fairy Folk Festival!

P.S. We thought we'd be able to include a photo we took on the Nullarbor, but it's not detecting the memory card. Maybe another time!

Labels: Festivals

Greetings from South Australia! We have crossed over, and will be spending the night at the Border Village Roadhouse.

We ran into a couple of delays today. Our headlights went out last night, and had to be replaced when we arrived at Norseman in the morning. We hardly saw any live wildlife, except for an emu, a kangaroo (which we nearly hit in broad daylight, but 'he was coming right for us!'), but heaps of 'roo carcasses littered along the road.

Nick also got breath tested when we were stopped by the cops after passing Cocklebiddy. It was just a routine check, and we were on our way after.

We're finally on track with our intended schedule, and should be in Adelaide on Thursday afternoon, and Port Fairy the day after for the Port Fairy Folk Festival!

Labels: Festivals

We are currently in Esperance and have been looking for an Internet cafe. The first one was down, but we're here at the gas station for $1 per 12 min kiosk, so here's a quick update!

The Nannup Music Festival was a success! We've come full circle with this festival. It was the first festival for Wildwood Instruments a couple of years ago, and this recent one has rivalled the success we had at the Bridgetown Blues Festival in November 2004. We've had heaps of people coming through and working their magic on Nick's musical instruments. We also found the dulcimer with the pick-up to be very popular.

We set out pretty early today, and have passed through Bridgetown, Ongerup, Ravensthorpe and Munglinup. We'll be in Norseman tonight and heading across the Nullarbor tomorrow, and we'll keep you posted whenever we can!

Labels: Festivals

Nick and Jeff will begin their mammoth 7 week road trip this Friday (2 days to go!). With a van absolutely packed full of musical instruments we will set off to the Nannup Music Festival this weekend. It looks to be a corker of a festival this year, which should be a great start to the national debut of Wildwood Instruments. The journey across the Nullarbor will take us 4 days, to arrive just in time for the Port Fairy Festival next weekend in Victoria. We will keep you posted as to how things go along the way, so keep an eye on this blog to see if we get lost in the desert or not!

Labels: Festivals