Gun Show AAR: September 25-26, 2010 Atlanta Expo Center Gun Show

[shaftoe]

We ran an Appleseed booth at the gun show at the Atlanta Expo Center this weekend.  The weekend was very successful.  We met a lot of people who had never heard of us and sent them away excited about attending an event.  

We had a lot of help both days, which was desperately needed from 11-2 when we were all very busy.  Saturday was Colonel Barrett, Wabash and her son, and myself.  Sunday we had Sanderman, cswhitfield, StoneDog, and myself.  

We inherited a number of materials from Yonah.  Included was a poster listing all of the free categories (women, active military, under 21, leo) in large letters.  This was by far our most useful prop.  

Sunday we created a poster containing a list of upcoming shoots in the state.  This was our second most useful prop.  We need to prepare one beforehand next time.  Also, a large map of the US with dots representing Appleseed locations would have been handy.  We encountered a lot of out-of-staters and being able to point at Missouri or California would have been easier than looking up shoots on a phone or directing them to a website.

We displayed a 3x5 foot banner from Fred on a pvc frame.   The banner is beautiful and when combined with array of revolutionary war flags it made us visible clear across the room.  This helped us make up for being tucked away to one side of the show.  

The RK Shows people were gracious enough to donate a table to us for free.  Their policy is to give out free tables to non-profit groups at locations that regularly don't fill up.  Other states should take advantage of this generosity.  They have a gun show at this location 3 times a year and I expect that we'll be back.  

We went through a ton of materials.  Small brochures that were given by Fred were very popular, especially with the website prominent on the front.  We went through a lot of copies of the SWAT article as well.  We also handed out brochures to several gun stores who asked to display them on their counter and pitch the program to customers.

Handouts describing checklists of items to bring and LTRs were great to have.  Shooters who were already signed up were often excited to get advanced copies of "how to be a rifleman" or "6 steps to firing the shot" to help prepare.  

We passed out a number of AQTs and redcoats.  People were very excited to get a few free targets and try out the course of fire.

AQTs also helped us with a few people who "already knew how to shoot" and didn't think they could possibly improve.  We'd challenge them to take a target home and to run the course of fire on it.  If they weren't quite where they thought they were, come back and see us.

Another suggestion made was to tally people we talked to into "definitely", "likely", "interested", "not interested", etc.  We didn't perform any counting, so we will have trouble calculating our success rate.  We should fix this in the future.

Thank you to everyone who came and helped out.  We reached a lot of new people and hopefully our efforts will start some on the path of Riflemen.

[Fred]

   Great report!

   And a much-needed activity in the Atlanta area - thanks for doing it!

   I would suggest the Redcoat targets make a great handout, so long as you explain how unique they are - "the only target which will tell you how far off you are effective with your rifle - and it requires only 13 rounds!"

   Maybe we need a handout of the US with AS locations plotted on it - it's not simply "out-of-towners" who'd be interested - it's all those people who "have a brother in Colorado" or "an uncle in Texas".

    And I can see where a handout with "What to bring" and "How to prepare" would be useful - altho there's a limit on how many handouts you can give 'em, I think. Too many, and the efficiency per handout goes way down.

[StoneDog]

Chris did a great job organizing the booth and keeping everything moving.  It felt good representing the project at a show like this.  A few points I found interesting:

I spoke to a couple of gentlemen that were more interested in CMP eligibility than the program itself.  I know it's not our main selling point, but I think both of them will join RWVA and attend for this reason.

I also spoke with a gentleman from the UK.  When I mentioned active duty military shoot for free he asked if that was for US Military only.  :-)  I would imagine that question hasn't been asked too many times yet?  He also offered a very sobering reminder that the liberty we enjoy here in the US is unique and needs to be preserved.  I considered it a warning from across the pond...

I noticed 3 or 4 people that walked by and clearly did not want to hear a word from us.  It seemed to help to tell everyone up front that we are non-profit and aren't here to take their money, etc.   That seemed to help calm down the people that were leery of another sales pitch and gave us at least 20 or 30 seconds more to hand them a brochure and explain a bit about the project, the shoots, etc.

Shaftoe, having a LTR and M1 on display was a big help.  I could see a couple of guys weren't really focusing on the brochure while we were talking but instead they seemed to rest their eyes on the rifles.   Everyone processes information a little differently and those that need to focus on something tangible, well, what's better than an M1?  If it will help, I can bring in my AR to the next event, maybe it will help with the younger and/or "tacticool" crowd?

[shaftoe]

   Great report!

   And a much-needed activity in the Atlanta area - thanks for doing it!

   I would suggest the Redcoat targets make a great handout, so long as you explain how unique they are - "the only target which will tell you how far off you are effective with your rifle - and it requires only 13 rounds!"

   Maybe we need a handout of the US with AS locations plotted on it - it's not simply "out-of-towners" who'd be interested - it's all those people who "have a brother in Colorado" or "an uncle in Texas".

    And I can see where a handout with "What to bring" and "How to prepare" would be useful - altho there's a limit on how many handouts you can give 'em, I think. Too many, and the efficiency per handout goes way down.

We handed out a number of redcoat targets as well.  They were a great hook since most thought these targets sounded like a lot of fun (and I expect they'll find the challenge motivating).  CSWhitfield also posted a redcoat target on a pillar (approximately) 25 meters away.  This was a great talking point.

We had a "checklist of items to bring" handout available, but reserved it for people who were expressing a strong interest in attending.  Barrett brought these handouts; I'm not sure where he got them.  They were very handy.

Great point about friends and relatives in other states.  We found that a lot of people were interested in sending kids, grandkids, wives, husbands, or buddies.  There seems to be a very common problem where people want to teach someone to shoot but don't know how.

[cswhitfield]

Had a great day with Shaftoe, Sanderman & StoneDog (gonna have to get me one of those catchy forum names) meeting a lot of people and talking up Appleseed.  The Redcoat targets were a real eye catcher and generated a lot of intrest, especially when you told them how to find their effective range.  Several couples and father/son groups became real interested when they learned that ladies and all under 21 shoot free.  Talking about getting off of the bench and down in the dirt wrapped up in their sling, then being able to "hit what they could see" also brought out some seemingly genuine interest in a number of visitors.