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Guitar World
Guitar World
Entertainment
Michael Astley-Brown

“There was great jubilation and there were tears”: Fender invited music fans to design their own Telecaster. They received over 1,500 applications – and turned four into a reality

Fender Guitar Design Contest 2025 winners.

This past weekend (October 11-13), Fender hosted a three-day, three-venue event, the Fender Experience, in Tokyo, Japan, inviting music fans to get up close with its biggest signature artists and some of its most ambitious builds – including three new Godzilla guitars.

Much of the Experience’s focus was on Custom Shop instruments, with guitar design workshops, signature artist performances and 200 one-off builds. But nestled amongst the Master Builder creations, there were a handful of electric guitars designed by music fans with no guitar-building experience at all – and in some cases, no guitar experience, period.

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