I've toured the Gibson Bozeman shop, Fender USA, Taylor Guitars, Santa Cruz, Deering, D'Addario and Martin.
I'm a photographer, so I look forward to doing that when I'm on a tour. Of the above listed tours, I was only prohibited from taking pictures at the D'Addario factory. Everyone else welcomed it.
I visited Bozeman some 17 years ago and, as far as I can remember, they gave tours back then (I was with a group invited by Gibson). I could be mistaken, though. And, yeah, there was no place to sit and play, nor were there t-shirts or other curios to buy. Fender also didn't have that, nor did D'Addario.
One thing that didn't sit right with me was, at Martin, you had to pay for the tour which took you onto the main production floor, or what they refer to as "behind the scenes". That seems pretty chintzy to me...
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