WELCOME BACK TO THE GREAT GUITAR BUILD OFF 2023
DATES FOR YOUR DIARY
- 1st of May - You can start building right now!
- 30th of November – The whole competition closes at midnight. All videos, shorts and photo’s are to be published before this date and final build pictures must be in with GGBO admins to allow voting to commence. Yes.. every single category including Invitational and all Professional entrants.
- 1st of December - Voting begins in all categories. We will poll each participant for their votes on the top 3 builders in each category including Professional and Invitationals via their category email newsletters.
- ALSO 1st of December - The Invitational No Limits Category Prize Draws to win each of these amazing instruments will go live on DailyGuitarDraw.com
- 26th December - Voting closes and we start collating the numbers.
- POSTPONED. The New Livestream will take place on Friday January 5th at 4pm. The livestream will be on the main Crimson Custom Guitars YouTube channel in which the top 3 of each competing category will be announced.
The Invitational guitar prize draws on the Daily Guitar Draw will finish and winners will be announced during this Livestream.
The Rules
1. Be Kind
2. Think Outside of the Box & Free Your Creativity, Uniqueness, and Originality!
3. You should have started building you guitar in 2023, photographing or videoing the process from start to finish, with the current GGBO Logo displayed where possible.
4. The end result must be a functional musical instrument.
5. You must build the guitar yourself, no ghost building (CNC however, is perfectly valid)
VOTING, JUDGING AND THE NEW FORMAT NEWSLETTER
Voting will be as 2022 with the GGBO community of builders judging each other, with one slight addition - GGBO Members, see below.
Everyone who is eligible to vote will receive regular Newsletter updates throughout the competition with important information, special offers, spot prizes, etc. To vote competitors will respond to the final voting newsletter with their top 3 choices for each category ranked first to last.
The new Members Community (Friends of GGBO) are non-competitors who will be made up of the folk out there who would like to support GGBO and their favourite builder by voting, but do not necessarily want to build a guitar or compete themselves.
For a small fee of £2.50 per month these member will receive the newsletter throughout the competition and will be able to vote as well as receive coupons and special offers from GGBO's friends and partners. (We will not abuse your email inbox, we promise!)
OUR MISSION STATEMENT: To keep the Art of Guitar Building Alive by Inspiring, Promoting and Supporting Guitar Builders.
How it all began - In 2020 the world went sideways. Someone planted a small seed and in order to have something to do, and watch, a few YouTubers were approached and Ben Crowe of Crimson Guitars announced a guitar building competition on the Crimson Custom Guitars YouTube Channel. Almost immediately there were members of the public asking if they could build along, and thus The Great Guitar Build Off was born.
From about 100 public entries in 2020, and millions of video views, we grew to over 400 Competitors in 2021 and 2022.
The Great Guitar Build Off will no longer be exclusively YouTube Based!
We feel we are not being as inclusive as we could be and will now be opening the competition to people who are unable, or do not wish, to make and edit long format video content for YouTube.
2023 will be the first year that we will accept photographs, reels or short videos on any of the following 3 platforms: Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.
WE ARE BUILDING YOUR PROFILE PAGES FOR YOU
and keeping them up to date when you WeTransfer new images to us.
To qualify for voting, we require 50 photographs covering the whole build start to finish with a further 10 images of the finished instrument to be sent before the closing date. The in progress images are important and are needed to prove that you are building the guitar throughout and to stop people wondering if ghost building is going on - group builds are allowed but must be explicitly mentioned in your profile. We need all photos and video clips to be sent us using WeTransfer, a safe and free file transfer site we use daily. Details in your entry pack.
The one addition that Ben made (after filming this announcement) is that contestants should also include a short videos of themselves, or someone else, playing the guitar. Send your demo reel along with the 10 photos of your finished guitar, before the deadline, to be included in the final voting process.
IT'S ALL ABOUT CHARITY
This year the biggest change though is that this whole thing is about even more than promoting guitar building, this year every single guitar build will be raising money for a small selection of worldwide music based charities and good causes. The mechanism is simple, your build is a sponsored build, the public will be able to donate in your name to the cause of your choice via your profile page.
We will regularly update your profile and the giving page with the amounts raised and will also be posting competition wide donation news across all our socials. If we can help just one person get the music therapy they need, or an instrument they can't afford then all of this is worthwhile.. and we can, together, do so much more!
Members Perks
- Special thanks and Members Names on the website
- Discounts on merchandise
- Special Offers
- Voting rights
- Previews of GGBO videos and other exclusive sneak peeks in the Members Area
PRIZES, SPOT PRIZES AND PERKS
There are no prizes for the Invitational Category or Professional competitors in the Scratch, Kit or Freestyle Competitions apart from a trophy, bragging rights and good feelings!
As in previous years, we will be accumulating prizes from a variety of sources for the other categories, apart from the Community Builders.
The main prize will be for the top 3 places of each category, and these will include but not be limited to a trophy and vouchers from our Partners, including main sponsor Crimson Guitars.
We feel that as well as these prizes, nothing says 'I won' quite so well as cold hard CASH! (or PayPal transfers!)
5% of all money raised (after fees) through the Prize Draws for the Invitational entries will go to the top three competitors in the Freestyle, Scratch and Kit categories. 3% to the winner. And 1% each to the two runners up.
Spot Prizes & Perks
Throughout the competition there will be regular Spot Prizes given out to people for everything from the best inlay to the most entertaining video, the most comical alter ego to the prettiest workshop.
As part of the entry fee, our main sponsor Crimson Guitars, will gift each luthier with a private discount on crimsonguitars.com worth 5% off everything on the site (apart from the 3 month in person guitar building course). This coupon will be good for unlimited use up until the final videos go live.