Gun Show AAR: December 4/5, 2010 Atlanta Expo Center Gun Show

[shaftoe]

We had another successful gun show at this venue with many people alerted to what Appleseed does and many fence sitters pushed to come out to a shoot.  The RK Shows people have been generous with us and deserve our thanks.

I'd like to thank Roundhouse, TravelPatriot, CsWhitfield, Goose, and Flathead for coming out and working the booth.  They all did a fantastic job of explaining who we are, what we do, and how amazing the Appleseed experience is.  Promotional work isn't exciting or glamorous, but it is needed and they made a difference this weekend.

We came out with new props this time, as suggested after the September show.  A large map of the southeast shoot locations and a large list of all the free categories of people were prominent, frequently referenced, and caught lots of attention.

We've come to realize that people only give us about 2 sentences before they walk out of range, unless those two sentences are good enough to make them come back over to hear more.  All of our volunteers have really polished their pitch and our booth was almost always surrounded by interested people. 

The color tri-fold brochures were fantastic.  We need a lot more of them for future events.  We found that new shooters loved the LTR and "What to Bring" handouts and experienced ones loved free redcoat targets.  The latter were especially useful for "I already know how to shoot" excuses.  "Take this home, shoot the COF, and if you don't clean the target come and talk to us." 

Rifles on the table made nice conversation pieces.  They both attracted attention and allowed us to point out accessories like slings and tech-sights.  A Garand also allowed us to talk up the CMP affiliation.

[cswhitfield]

A special tip of the hat to Shaftoe for setting up and organizing this promotion.  He certainly did the lion's share of the work.  I believe we generated a lot of intrest in the upcoming shoot at Waco.  A number of people "promised" to see us there.  Also several expressed interest but were hesitant about spending an entire weekend or were just intrested in bringing their kids or grandkids to a future shoot.  I encouraged them to at least stop by and check us out.  It may be wishful thinking but I really expect at least two or three to show up at Waco next weekend who were not aware of Appleseed prior to being tackled at the Gun Show.  Several military types were intrested.  We also had a number of people express intrest in being able to shoot at distances over 100 yds.

Craig