There is a mountain of work that goes into putting SHOT Show together. It is, after all, the eighth largest trade show in the country. And that work covers 13.9 miles of exhibits up and down what feels more like an endless maze of aisles.
Here is a little behind the scenes look at the industry’s biggest event. Special thanks to our friends at NSSF – the people that own SHOT Show – for giving us early access to areas off limits to the media. Well, most media.
The 2024 SHOT Show features a considerably larger area dedicated to archery than anytime in recent memory. On Sunday exhibitors like Rock Ridge Outdoors were in preliminary setup mode. But they’ll all be ready-to-go on Tuesday when SHOT Show officially opens.
Like many shows, exhibitors and attendees like to have mementoes of their visit. SHOT 2024 will accommodate them with a variety of logo merchandise.
On Sunday, workers were still moving parts, pieces and products through aisles that will soon be jammed with attendees.
Common areas were …uncommonly…empty (top and bottom) in advance of the show’s opening. This is the last time those halls will be uncrowded.
Monday afternoon everything was ready to go for when school started this morning. SHOT U. is one of the valuable dealer programs NSSF offers during the show and is designed to help them and their businesses succeed.
The same could not be said for the main show floor where set-up activities were still in full swing. Dodging forklifts is not for the faint of heart, though the venue’s laborers are well versed at missing pedestrians…with a smile. Meanwhile, up in the sky. Look, it’s a bird. It’s a plane. It’s a rigger over what was yesterday afternoon an as yet unfinished show booth. [PHOTO Up-In-The-Sky]
Downstairs, below the main floor, where many of the smaller and newer companies set up shop during the show, trailers are still parked down the main drag. The good news is they were gone late Monday night. The bad news is that NSSF’s own booths couldn’t go up until those trailers drove off, making it a very early start this morning for those staffers.
But those exhibitors, like Gun Tote’n Mamas, not on that main drag were able to get their booth all but ready but for the final clean up.
One area of SHOT that was in full swing was the very popular Supplier Showcase. Taking up the entire fifth floor, the Supplier Showcase is a two day show within the show. All of the 564 exhibitors, like Microbest out of Waterbury, Connecticut, faced packed aisles as company reps shopped for anything and everything one needs to manufacture firearms and accessories. [PHOTO Microbest]
The bright shiny objects at SHOT are the stars of the show, but the bigger picture is the how SHOT funds the important work of NSSF. Signs along the main concourse educate attendees on what SHOT Show means for the overall industry beyond these four days. With the NRA currently pre-occupied, NSSF has stepped in to fill the void when it comes to lobbying and advocating for the industry and our Second Amendment rights.
Those attending and exhibiting in Las Vegas will have a significant impact on the industry well beyond this week. When you read in 2024 of a state or federal legislative success, or another city working hand-in-hand with NSSF to rollout a Project Childsafe or Don’t Lie for the Other Guy program, it’s thanks in great part to the people here this week. In other words when it comes to NSSF, membership matters.
