TAKE ME OUT - VIVA LAS VEGAS!

Dave Barham reports on this year’s SHOT Show in Las Vegas – surely the show of shows for all things gun related

- Dave Barham

Well, what a treat that was! I’ve just returned from the 42nd annual Shooting Hunting & Outdoor Trades Show, known simply as ‘SHOT’. I’d heard all the stories of just how crazy and huge this show has been in previous years, from the rest of the team at Airgun Towers, and this was my opportunity to see it all for myself. Unfortunately, we’d left it a bit late regards booking flights and suchlike, so I ended up having to endure a ‘Planes, Trains and Automobiles’ style journey in order to get to Vegas. In total it took me just over 23 hours from door to door, so I was a tad knackered before I even got started.

It was a whirlwind trip, getting to my hotel at 6pm on the Monday evening, then being up and out the door for 8am the following morning for three action-packed days at the show, then heading back to Blighty at 6am on the Friday morning, so I didn’t really get much of a chance to explore Vegas, but that didn’t matter – the SHOT show said it all.

FOOT WRECKER

With over 12.5 miles of aisles accessing thousands of stands that were spread over an incredible 692,000 square feet of floor space, it certainly provided a work-out for my feet! Luckily for me, I’d downloaded the SHOT Show app on my iPhone, which turned out to be a godsend.

It works by geolocation, so you just type in the name of a stand where you are and it finds you, then you type in the name of a stand where you want to go and it pings up the fastest route to said stand – I only worked this out towards the end of the second day, so the first day and a half was spent trying to memorize the layout – a nigh on impossible task with so many exhibitors and floor space!

SO MUCH TO SEE