All,
I just received word from Jim Tomes at 2nd Amendment Patriots (and Appleseed Blog contributor) that the city of South Bend will be allowing the first gun show in 15 years on Feb 7-8, 2009. Can we get a team to man an Appleseed booth? I'll take care of arrangements and materials if we can get some boots on the ground.
Let me know absolutely ASAP so arrangemetns can be made.
Hawkhavn
I'm in for at least one day, maybe two. Will let you know within the next day or so.
Resdep and I are planning on Saturday the 7th.
Chap
Indiana is trying out it's second gun show promotion location this weeekend! First off, big thanks to IITs Resdep and 17chap for tackling an unknown show in a new city..South Bend. Tomorrow Brokensling and .5 are up to bat!
Resdep's report is below, this kind of teamwork is important in building Appleseed. The show is at the other end of the state from me making it impractical to attend so the folks in that part of the state stepped up and helped out not only northern Indiana but Michigan and Ohio as well. They used regional flyers to maximize the impact.
Lessons learned-get started earlier, this was a snap setup, less than 2 weeks from notification to start. All involved have worked the big Indy 1500 show before so they knew what to expect. But I failed to get materials there in quantity, but they adapted and overcame. Share the workload, our team is now big enough to have split shifts to cover a show, so no one is spending a weekend away from home to make a go of it.
Good luck tomorrow!
Hawkhavn
Although this isn't the Indy1500 it was not a small show by any means. I think the promoter did a great job. Everything seemed well planned with a good variety of dealers. It opened a 0900 and we were instantly busy. Chap took about 50-60 fliers and by 1000 we were trying to find a copy machine to make more. I ended up walking around downtown looking for a print shop. I ended up finding the library and making $15 worth of fliers. We gave away another 100+ fliers before running out about 4:00. There was a lot of interest in AS. I asked Tami is she knew how many came in the and she said over 1500. You are correct about carry, leave your ammo in the car. They will let you tie your display guns. You can't hang anything on the walls so we couldn't hang a target.
I think it was a good show and in the future make sure to take plenty of fliers. I am sure the next time Chap and I would try to come up with a way to display the fliers a little better rather than having them lay on the table. We had an AR, Garand, M1A and a LTR. They certainly get people to stop at the table. Let me know if you have any questions.
Feel free to post this if you want.
resdep
I'll add my two cents:
First it is a lot of work. I talked myself horse and got cramps from standing in one place for a couple of hours at at time. Hats off to Hawkhavn for working a weekend at the Indy1500.
We talked to a lot of folks and the very great majority (meaning very few didn't) listened to our entire brief presentation. Not very many seemed to be patronizing us. There was genuine interest. There were several AS participants there and one guy with an instructor orange hat. I spoke to his wife but not him. She said he would come by we were not so busy, but he didn't. Everyone we offered a midwest flier to took one that I know of.
I didn't think the table looked to bad. We put 4 rifles on the table along with the Midwest fliers, LTR fliers, Talking Targets handouts and some targets as needed. I folded my shooting jacket so the patches showed and put the guns and fliers on it without blocking the patches. Resdep put a folded t-shirt down the same way so the logo was obvious. I stood up my instructor notebook in one corner and it has a RWVA logo on the cover. It made a good backstop. The redcoat target catches the eye and it is narrow. It fit right down the center of my shooting jacket. I printed the "This M1 is not for sale" poster and put it in a sheet protector. I had a CMP patch which is bright blue that I slid in the sheet protector, another eye catcher. The table was full but didn't look busy or cluttered.
The M1 Garand and the LTR are conversation starters. Since Garands were selling for $900 there, folks were attracted by the option of getting one for $495.
Ideas:
For South Bend, we should have had Michigan shoots on the flier. I didn't see any on there and there were lots of folks from Michigan. Also the Talking Targets flier is appreciated by shooters since it has the diagnosis targets, Six Steps and the moa clicks for different guns. It is a good tool, but the web site needs to be more prominent.
A dvd in a small personal player would be great. Even a computer would be large on an 8 foot table. If we had a dvd with shooting and some history excerpts in a 10-15 minute loop it would be great. A personal player would allow it's use by batteries.
Chap