Fender American Vintage II PopUp event in Austin, TX was pretty lame...

[@lildae24]

Bro I took off of work that day and waited in the line from 8am. I was one of the ppl who won a guitar. If u really wanted to win one u just had to plan to be there early. They had 51 guitars available to win. They said all of this in the advert. It was a rwally fun event and i feel like ur experience would have been better if u actually planned to be there. There were about 300 ppl in line by time the doors opened. They made it super fair to win one based on the raffle. This is my favorite guitar and it was the only time I was able to afford a brand new fender guitar and i have been playing fenders professionally for 10 years. I met some really cool ppl and saw a lot of my colleagues who are heavy players in the scene. If u put in minimal effort u get minimal results

[@rockdanger]

Thanks for the added info/update Damon... Nice to hear from someone who was at the day session. Glad to hear it worked out for you and nice to hear that someone who was an actual "regular joe" got one of the guitars. In the invite e-mail I received from Fender it didn't say anything about the guitar contest occurring only at the day event...

[@lildae24]

I see what ur saying. Sorry if I came off a bit edgy. It really was a cool experience man

[@Mindokwin]

I bought a AVII '57 Blonde finish Strat with ash body. I had to order direct from Fender and although it showed "in stock" it took three weeks to get it sent out. It does have the narrow V neck with the 7.25" radius. I don't find the strings too close where they roll off the edge on mine. But for someone used to a fatter neck it might be different. No flaws at all I can find. It is a great guitar. I'm saving up for one of the telecasters.

[@rockdanger]

Cool... glad it worked out for ya... the telecasters are definitely really nice in this series.

[@timothyhood8895]

I stumbled into this video because I've been a little fascinated that beyond some Insta stories, Fender didn't really release any media related to this. They had a full-on production team on the day, so it just seemed weird to me. The blurb that I saw indicated you signed up, you weren't guaranteed entry, and there would be 51 guitars at the 51 price. I managed to get there around 11 in the morning, stood around with a group of guys that ranged from a highschool student skipping school, to a contractor who was skipping work. There were 51 gold bingo balls and something like 150 blackside bingo balls in a hopper. When they opened, they checked you in, and you spun the bingo hopper. Blackball, enjoy the free drinks, check out the guitars, Gold ball, congrats, you're a winner. I was probably 40 people back in line. A lot of people in front of me hit. The 7th person in front of me won. The six after that didn't. My turn. Gold ball. Everything after that is a little fuzzy. I went to the side and paid, they handed me an AVII neck plate, and a guitar in a case. Some guy took my picture. A lady with a video camera asked me what I thought. I was moderately dazed. The head of the product design team, and some other Fender guitar nerds were there. I got to talk to the head guy for a bit about the brass saddles. He was nice. I think a lot of people who won, bounced out kind of it'squick because its kind of hard to hang out with 2 grand in your hand. To your point about the money Fender spent, who knows what the space cost them, or what they paid bands. I imagine the booze was pretty cheap. But, they sold 51 guitars that retail for $2200 for $250. That right there is a $100k loss. The event was maybe poorly organized, and poorly promoted. But, I had an incredible afternoon, got an amazing guitar I would have struggled to justify buying, and I play it almost every single day.

[@rockdanger]

Tim, thanks so much for the detailed back story on exactly how the morning session worked. Awesome that you came up a winner. Sounds fairly "fair" doing the bingo ball thing... just wish they would have done similar for the evening session as well.

[@georgecaplan11]

Speaking to my local guitar store guys, the AV2 guitars are in global short supply. I have ordered the 63 tele in sunburst and won’t get it til April 2023. I played the Crimson red 63 tele in a store and it was way better than the American Pro 2 tele and the Ultra tele.

[@rockdanger]

Interesting... like a 5 month wait... wow! Should be sweet with that sunburst...

[@vyvynylification]

I played all of these extensively too. I wouldn't say they're better but mainly different. The AVII guitars did feel more 'pure' to me. And the specs give them a budget custom shop vibe :) I already own an AO60 tele so I'm set there but I might swap my strat ultra with an AVII '61 strat!

[@TREVORJB101]

Fender did a much better job on the previous batch of AVRI guitars from 2012-2017. These new ones aren't as detailed.

[@rockdanger]

Interesting feedback... I heard some people say they liked these because they thought they were more accurate to a specific year, whereas the last AVRI were kind of "based on a decade"... I remember playing some in a guiatr shop and they seemed pretty nice.