Belfast is better anyway from when I moved here as a kid. We didn't even have Tesco's or McDonalds because of Insurance I'm guessin. Comin from Glasgow from where we had everything to this troubled backwater as it was at the time was hellish as a kid.

Shootings every night, bombs and bomb scares every day, curfews, no access to city centre at night, no good shops at all, police carrying machine guns, knowing where a policeman lived because the windows were slightly blue cos of bullet proof glass, riots, getting the 5h1t kicked out of me at least once a week for wearing a Catholic uniform to school......I could go on........but yeah Ceri, things are better everywhere but no where more than Belfast in the last 10-15 years. The city really is growing and has a great atmosphere around it, especially this time of year,it's a fantastic place to be and shop.

What Binterz was getting at though is the quality of gear here dude, we have music shops but me and Binterz aren't the kind of guys who want to go in and play an ESP through a Crate. There is a real lack of quality stuff here.

The Belfast Guitar Emporium started off good with high end Fender, Gibson and Gretches and vintage amps but quickly changed ownership and has gone to the dogs. They have some high end copies and great acoustics but bugger all Fender.

CC

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Fender Stratocaster (parts build)
Fender Telecaster 72 Custom RI
Fender Telecoustic Deluxe
Gretsch Electromatic Pro-Jet
Gibson Les Paul Standard Plus
Gibson ES-135
Zenith Type-17
Marshall 70's JMP Superbass 100w
Blackstar HT-5

What we need to understand as players is that shops have to pick their prospective customer base and supply them. My local guitar shop will never sell me a guitar. They cater to people wanting a knockabout instrument and kids wanting something to learn on. They overcharge on everything, yet I still use em. Its worth supporting them just for the luxury of having somewhere close by that I can buy the odd bits and things from.

Gibson make things really hard for their sellers. You have to have an initial buy of £30,000 worth of guitars, have XXX amount of shop space for nothing but their guitars. Sell X amount and get a free guitar to sell, thats your profit from working selling their stuff. I can only presume fender have their own stipulations. I know both manufacturers demand you pay them to train you to sell their guitars.

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No no and no