Thank you for the nice comments.   It was the first time I used a digital camera and overall the results were pretty good. My shaky hands cooperated for the most part!

It was really an amazing conference. I was very happy to see so much talent. There were over 2000 attendees to the conference, more than half of them were musicians. It was impossible to do anything other than scratch the surface of talent on premises. (Plus waiting for incredibly slow elevators held up things!)

Yes, Amy won the Taylor!   We were standing in the back of the room talking when the drawing began. Before they drew the winner she stopped me and said "hold on, I'm going to have to go pick up my guitar".   You can only imagine the look on her face when her name was called! I quickly ran out and bought some lottery tickets thinking the luck might run off, but it didn't!

I was worried that the conference would be dominated solely by singer-songwriters.   I would say they were prevelant, and they were also very good, but traditional music was well represented. Irish groups like Danu and Bohola were outstanding, there were numerous old-timey bands, Carol Ponder gave some brilliant accapella singing, the Sacred Harp singing was inspiring to listen to (I should have joined in!), Capt. Rick Nestler treated us to some shanty singing, and so much more. It was great to finally meet Les Barker. Seeing Arlo Guthrie mingling in the exhibit hall was really great to see.

I am looking forward to NERFA in the fall!   Now that I know the camera works, I will try to document more events. Can't wait till the festival season starts!

Thanks again for the nice comments. I really appreciate it.

Ron