Gearfest is an annual free festival arranged by Sweetwater, inviting manufacturers of equipment, musicians and all those interested in music equipment to share their achievements or just to take a look. This year the festival broke record of attendance: it was attended by 15,000 guests, including those from Australia, Brazil and Japan. Moreover, 15% more products were sold compared to last year.

At the Gearfest 2018 some novelties were presented, for example, mixers Mackie DL32S and DL16S, passive studio monitors Avantone CLA10, guitar Line 6 Shuriken Variax SR250, wireless system BOSS and much more. As a pleasant bonus for visitors, there was created a point with a free guitar strings replacement, and a wall of 21-cabinet and 7 Marshall amplifiers was built, where visitors could be photographed.

In the evening of the first day, a concert was held where you could hear performances and jams of such talented performers as Paul Reed Smith, Fred Gretch, Lee Oscar and many others. There was also a spontaneous performance of two former members of the band Eric Clapton, who accidentally ran into each other at the festival and decided to go on stage and play "Pretending".

In terms of education and experience exchange this year was also very rich, over two days, more than 200 seminars and master classes covering topics such as searching for your viewer on Youtube, creating music on the computer, improving the performance technique, etc. were held. You could learn from the best: Producer activity was told by Silvia Massey (Tool, Prince), Chris Lord-Elj (James Brown, Prince), Neil Pog (TLC, Pink), Kevin Killen (Shakira, U2); Taylor Swift, Panic! at the Disco, Emmylou Harris, Robert Plant, Bon Jovi, Bruce Springsteen and others spoke about finding and recording excellent guitar tones.

In general, the festival this year showed an increase in the number of people interested in the subject of musical equipment and the creation of music in general. Being free and open to anyone Gearfest event is definitely a place that many people are eager to visit, and I think that its audience will grow further. Next year the festival will be held on June 21-22.