Hi Bruce,
I thought the venue was a bit better this year, access to the hotel may have been better and free parking in downtown Silver Spring was nice. Not to mention a short walk to Ray's steak house, great food.
However some of the rooms upstairs were small, like Jonathan Horwich's room, what was it 7 or 8 feet wide???
It was good he had MBL stand mounted speakers in there, a pair of floorstanders may have caused a boom fest, but he did get great sound in there.
Maybe it was just me but I thought the attendance was lower than last year, however the last show I did was Newport and I was on the main floor, first room off the bar area, we were mobbed!! That show is really BIG, what was it 6000 or 7000!
Gary Gill and his group were most accommodating, the hotel staff was great and surprisingly we got all our gear off the truck right on busy Georgia Avenue straight down the hall to our room with little trouble.
Everyone who attended seemed to be happy with the equipment, manufacturers, dealers and distributors that materialized for the event, hopefully we'll have another Capital Audiofest next year.
Gary also did a great job of bringing in the press, Peter Breuninger, Myles Astor, Art Dudley, Scot Hull, Mike Fremer, who am I forgetting???
Myles and I had a chance to have some adult beverages at the bar and catch up, you know sometimes what is great at these shows is just hanging out with like minded folks.
We had the usual fun at the after hours Master Tape Events but when we drank up all the vino I think some may have regretted starting on that Tawny Port at 2am??
Hindsight...
BTW Bruce, I liked the R2R rooms too.