Well despite the economic chaos it seems that Christmas sales of guitars, amps and effects have increased dramatically in 2008 according to GFK.
The market research giant GFK the UK guitar trade completely bucked the general retail trend and gre considerably. It’s figures show that total guitar sales for the month reached 106,300 – a rise of 3.4 per cent on December 2007. Electrics were also up by 7.5 per cent and echoes the strong performance from home entertainment products, such as games consoles, which grew in double digits. This seems to be down to the immense popularity of music simulation games such as Guitar Hero and Rock Band.
Whilst many critics thought this might spell the end of teenagers picking up the real thing these popular console games seem to be stimulating interest in guitar playing in general which is really encouraging. Furthermore with games such as Guitar Rising actually starting to bridge the gap between game and guitar lesson it could take guitar playing to a whole new level with the console generation.
