A great few days of music, catching up with old friends, customers and making new friends. Scott Mackenzie, our highly respected Sydney technician and David Temby (Temby Australia) were invited guests and clinicians at the 20th anniversary festival. The festival attracts artists and music fans from all around the country and this year had a great line up of fantastic musicians.

Amongst those were The Catholics featuring Sandy Evans and James Greening, Tribute to Tom Baker, featuring Paul Furniss, Dan Barnett and Anthony Howe, Bellingen's own The Roger Burke Band and The 2CS Breakfast Band with Geoff Speed, Brett Iggulden and Peter Baylor plus..... Jim Conway's Big Wheel, Continental Robert and the Rinky Dinks, The Jugalug Stringband, Eddie de Brasil, The Craig Scott Quintet featuring Warwick Alder and Paul Cutlan. It was also great to hear the wonderful sounds of the Bellingen High School Jazz Band and the Bellingen Big Band. What an enthusiastic bunch of young musicians, a beautiful town and a fantastic music festival.

Both Scott and David ran clinics as part of the festival. Scott discussed instrument repairs and problem solving with the attendees. It was really interesting to hear and see how preventative maintenance will reduce most chances of "messing up" at a rehearshal or a gig. He also walked through different ways of identifying potential problems with woodwind mechanisms and showed how bad fitting instrument cases can cause damage. David talked about the history of saxophone designs and materials, how he started designing and developing his own instruments and improvements over the past 15 or so years. He also showed many parts of saxes from raw materials through to finished instruments and explained how different designs and materials respond differently with individual players. Both sessions were very informative and presented logical concepts. Scott and David invited all attendees to stay in touch and were encouraged to communicate with any technical questions in the future.

The Music Place also had a "hands on" display at the Council Grounds - displaying Temby saxophones, flutes, trumpets and accessories along with Marcinkiewicz mouthpieces, Gonzalez reeds, beautiful leather instrument cases and lots of other interesting bits and pieces. Many players - young and old, had the opportunity of trying out instruments and other things that they had not seen or tried before. All in all, a fantastic weekend for musos, audiences, the local pubs and restaurants, Scott, David and The Music Place.