Leading up to the NSSF’s 2022 SHOT Show, a lot of the buzz was about the exhibitors that wouldn’t be there. A number of industry companies made the entirely rational, calculated decision that shipping a lot of their personnel to Las Vegas for a week during the dreaded Omicron surge — and then bringing them home to work alongside their production staff — wasn’t a risk they were willing to take.

There was at least some apprehension among a lot of people TTAG talked to — industry types, exhibitors, and those in the media who cover the annual confab — about traveling to Vegas this year. Some of them had their own health issues and some live with others who do. We know of a number of publications that significantly cut back their contingents of writers in order to minimize exposure.

So we knew going in that things would be different given the current case spike and the various responses to that by SHOT Show regulars. Now, a week and a half after the show, how did the whole thing turn out?

We knew things were different when Jeremy and I drove up to the Boulder Rifle and Pistol Club a little after 8:00a on Monday morning. There were noticeably fewer cars in the lot than there have been in previous years.

Sure enough, the number of morning Range Day media drones like ourselves was clearly smaller than in a “normal” year. The good news is that made it far easier to get time to talk with the companies that were there and shoot their products.

Springfield Armory’s empty SHOT Show Range Day bay.

The other good news is, with maybe two exceptions, one of them above, all of the booked Range Day exhibitors were there and the bays were occupied.

As the show officially opened on Tuesday, the accommodations that the NSSF and the Sands Expo Center Venetian Expo Center made for holding a large convention during a pandemic were plain to everyone.

There was no shortage of masks and hand sanitizer for those who wanted them. Signs posted outside the convention halls made it clear that a state mandate required that everyone in attendance wear a mask. Signs in some areas noted that those who refused to comply could be ejected from the show. That requirement caused one of our writers to stay home. He didn’t want to be saddled with a mask all week.

And sure enough, grey-shirted “security officers” roamed the floors asking those who had dropped their masks to put them back on.

That said, compliance was…less than universal. While the venue did its best to enforce the state mandate, show-goer and exhibitor compliance steadily declined as the convention went on.

There were a lot of people walking with cups of coffee and water bottles, “drinking” as they went, which is, of course, difficult to do while wearing a mask. Our completely unscientific estimate of mask mandate compliance is that it was probably 80% to 85% on Tuesday. On Wednesday, that number dropped to 50% to 60%. And on Thursday, if much more than about a third of those there were masked, we’d be amazed.

How many exhibitors were showed up? It may surprise some to hear that the vast majority were there and doing business.

There were scattered empty exhibitor locations that were handled in a variety of ways by the NSSF and the companies themselves. Probably the most imaginative was turning what would have been the big Beretta/Benelli/Stoger booth, smack-dab in a prime spot on the main floor, into a media center for video and audio production.

Most of the no-show exhibitors turned their booth spaces into lounges with “sorry we missed you this year” signs.

That gave those of us who were there plenty of convenient pit stop locations on the show floor that haven’t been there in previous years.

Some exhibitors just left their spaces empty.

And some got a little more creative with the unoccupied real estate.

But don’t let those photos fool you. The no-shows were far less prevalent than many expected. From eyeballing the two floors at the Venetian and the two spaces across the bridge at Caesars Forum, it looked like only about five to ten percent of the exhibition spaces went unused.

As for foot traffic, the reduced number of attendees was noticeable. We asked the NSSF for a headcount, but all they would say was they had 43,000 registered attendees. How many were actually there isn’t clear.

Given the addition of the Caesars space for the first time this year, those who were there were spread out over a larger number of square feet this year than ever before…692,000 square feet, to be exact. That made assessing attendance compared to previous years harder. Our wholly unscientific guesstimation is that the crowd was probably somewhere between 15% to 20% down from previous years.

The upside of that is it was far easier to navigate the show floors than it had ever been before. There wasn’t the usual elbow-to-elbow jostling at the heaviest trafficked booths and it was far easier to find and talk to the people we wanted to talk to. The show this year also had a different, noticeably more relaxed feel to it than the usual frenzy.

That said, TTAG had the busiest meeting schedule — appointments set up with exhibitors in advance of show week — we’ve ever had in any previous year. That’s probably a reflection of the fact that after the insanity of the sales volume and production in 2020 and 2021, the industry has caught up to demand and is seeing things return to something approximating normal again. We heard that from a lot of manufacturers.

Another interesting note: an NSSF press release called the SHOT Show “a confidence builder for those who track Las Vegas conventions. SHOT Show and other trade shows are hugely important to the city’s economy.” That couldn’t be more accurate.

I talked to a Venetian manager in an elevator who sighed and told me that he was really glad the SHOT Show went ahead, especially after what he called the “disaster” that was the Consumer Electronics Show.

CES — an even bigger draw that SHOT — was scheduled for January 5 to 7. But that was right in the middle of the Omicron spike. The Venetian manager told me that all of the biggest hotels in Las Vegas lost “about 80% of their reservations” as a huge percentage of CES show-goers backed out.

He told me that having 30,000?, 40,000? gun industry types roaming the Expo Center for four days was a huge relief.

So in the end, it’s true that a relatively small number of booked exhibitors weren’t there. And the crowd was smaller, if more manageable than in past years. But for those of us who made it to Las Vegas, SHOT Show 2022 has to be called a success. I heard the same sentiment from a couple of dozen exhibitors I asked, too. They were glad they were there and happy to be doing something normal again.

That doesn’t mean everything went off completely without a hitch. On the plane home, I started to feel something in my chest. A couple of days later I tested positive for Covid (yes, I was vaccinated, for whatever that’s worth). I’ve talked to others who brought a little something extra home with them, too. That’s why we’re still trickling out SHOT posts ten days after the show.

To be fair the “SHOT Show crud” has been an annual feature of the convention that most of us have brought home at lease once.

In the end, my bout of COVID was mostly just a bad cold and I’ve since tested negative. I guess I owe the SHOT Show a debt of thanks for my newfound super immunity.

Virus or not, I’m still glad I went and I’d do it again. I’m glad the NSSF put on a successful show and that it probably helped keep a good number of Las Vegas service industry types working.

My guess is that next year’s exhibitor count and attendance will be much closer to the historical norm, whatever the Chinese flu situation is 11 months down the road. In any case, we’ll be back again in 2023, as always.

 

 

 

 

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

53 COMMENTS

  1. Good to hear TTAG guys. I’ve seen a gazillion videos & read reports from SHOT. Including that Reeves lunacy…

  2. I’m glad to hear that things went relatively smoothly, and that Dan pulled through the deadly VID. 👍

    Reading about the mask wearing was funny. Few people still believe in them, and most people only wear them when the Karen’s really raise a stink about it.

    • Been surprised to see them anywhere outside of NY or Philly when visiting family for the last 6 months but haven’t been west of the Mississippi since this madness started.

  3. I keep seeing “the industry has returned to normal” but a search for ammo says otherwise. Sure, if you have always paid twice as much for reman or some weird brand that just popped up last week, this is normal for you. Occasionally I see an ad for a brand/cartridge that I prefer from some website I never heard of. Then a deeper look shows it is yet another scam site.

    When I can get Remington L9mm1b for 37 bucks again, then we can talk about normal.

  5. It was less crowded than usual plus it was the first time everybody did NOT get sick. Shot Show Flu happened every year prior to 2022. But during this alleged “pandemic” somehow nobody caught a disease.

    • You don’t know if “nobody” caught it or not. But the article tells u in the article he got covid and tested positive which means it was passed along by another who got it from another etc…so in the end there are probably lots that got it but aren’t showing symptoms yet.

  6. “In the end, it was mostly just a bad cold

    Then the vaccine probably worked, but some people get milder symptoms anyway without it or are asymptomatic.

    The vaccine was designed to lessen the likely hood of getting serious or deadly symptoms or getting the virus actual symptoms at all even though one might be infected, for the majority of people. It was not designed as a cure or a complete prevention.

    • A bad cold with chest ache and mild intermittent fever is what it felt like to me. I’m fully vaccinated. A neighbor got it and had to go on a respirator then died three days later, he was not vaccinated.

      • A cold with slightly different symptoms is what it was like for me, and that was the real “COVID Classic” a year ago not the neutered Omicron variant.

        I’m not “injected” by the way, but did know to take vitamins C, and D, and minerals like Zinc and Selenium (both regularly and while sick). I’m also in my late forties and relatively healthy (which means I’m overweight but also work out regularly at the gym) 😉

        My fully injected and recently boosted little sister contracted the omicron, and her symptoms were pretty similar to mine. I have more than a sneaking suspicion that the injection does little to no good (and moderate to severe harm). I try not to say that kind of thing to my elderly parents (with multiple comorbidities), as I don’t want to depress them.

        At this point, medical malpractice seems to be the most deadly component of COVID. Refusing to provide early treatment and then throwing people on ventilators to die is a disaster. See the early treatment protocols at:

        https://covid19criticalcare.com/covid-19-protocols/i-mask-plus-protocol/

        • yes to b12, d3 and a wee dram. divided on the efficacies of popcorn lung.
          your folks are exactly where the dice must be rolled.
          the sad part is the media suppression of alternative therapies. follow the money.
          “our” guv and mayher caused taverns to become speakeasies. it was surreal for awhile. the masks went away, came back. they added cards but the only customers i see being carded are the stereotypical poor tippers (“stereotypes are real time savers”).
          maybe chicago is racist.

      • “The vaccine was designed to lessen the likely hood of getting serious or deadly symptoms or getting the virus actual symptoms at all..”

        Booger, eh?

        Well apparently you have been digging to deep, caused some brain damage.

        • To think that any vaccine offers 100% prevention of contracting the disease is to ignore reality in favor of some cult narrative.

          We’ve had a measles vaccination for decades, but at best it’s 97% effective at preventing measles.

          “The MMR vaccine is very safe and effective. Two doses of MMR vaccine are about 97% effective at preventing measles; one dose is about 93% effective.“

          So you’re saying that the measles vaccination is not a real vaccination and there’s nothing but “horseshit” because it is not 100% effective at preventing contracting the disease.

          May the great flying spaghetti monster deliver me from flat Earthers!

          I bet you think Donald Trump won the election in 2020 as well…

      • I got vaccinated so don’t confuse what I’m about to say as coming from somebody who doesn’t believe in vaccines… But you’re completely wrong about what it was “designed” to do and how it was sold to the public. It absolutely, 100% was intended and pitched as something that would prevent infection. Biden, Fauci, and lots of others were saying publicly that it would stop the spread by preventing people from catching or giving COVID. This is our general understanding of vaccines, too, as this is the purpose and the function of the vast majority of them. This messaging and understanding of the COVID vaccines didn’t change until Delta, when people first started getting “breakthrough” infections in increasing numbers. The whole “breakthrough” terminology exists because the fact that people were contracting COVID despite being vaccinated was a surprise and was in opposition to the messaging. It wasn’t until omicron that “breakthrough” infections became the rule rather than the exception, and this is also when the messaging changed to the bit about not being intended to prevent infection but to make infections milder. This is a complete lie and there’s all sorts of video of our dear leaders saying the opposite over and over and over prior to this.

        All that said, I do absolutely believe the vaccines saved many lives by making infections less severe, mostly for the original and Delta flavors. Much less so for the ‘cron, which is way milder to begin with and the vaccines don’t have as much of an effect with, but I’m sure it still helped many. I know it improved my 5G service.

        • avatar Geoff "A day without an apparently brain-damaged mentally-ill demented troll is like a day of warm sunshine" PR

          I’ve had the full series, the first 2, and a ‘booster’, and I’ve gotten 3 ‘colds’ since then, over the past month. So I’m convinced I got a variant of some sort or 2.

          We were lied to over, and over again, an I’ll never forgive them for that. But I’ve also used their panic against them, as I still carry and use a mask for a little anonymity when I want it… 🙂

        • “But you’re completely wrong about what it was “designed” to do”

          No, i’m not Jeremy. And how it was pitched is not the same as how it is.

          The science is there and the science works, period.

        • Booger is clearly a blue piller.

          “Breakthrough” infections are just a semantics game of what it really is: a vaccine failure.

          The CCPV vax is not a vaccine and has never been a vaccine. It is a lie. Flat out. And billions of dollars were made based on that lie. And thousands if not millions have died and are going to die because of it. The narrative has always been “just get the vaccine because we say so” not because they work. And all therapeutics, which could have saved thousands if not millions, were denied to the sick. Why? Because, narrative.

          The vax is complete and utter horseshit.

        • “…and it improved my 5G service.”

          I just spewed coffee all over myself!

          Thanks for the laugh! *8)

        • “…how it was sold to the public…”

          Same applies to the official line about those worthless cloth masks. “Flatten the curve” my eye. At least now they’re kinda sideways suggesting that cloth masks may not be quite so effective as the official line proclaimed, by pushing the N95 masks as being better.

    • No it was not “designed” that way. That was the end result but you cannot show a SINGLE thing from before the vaccine was introduced showing this was the intent. It was designed as an actual vaccine. It didn’t work.

        • Sorry Booger, a vaccine prevents you from acquiring the disease.

          This ain’t no vaccine.

          But thanks for playing!

        • I get the sense there will be a few years of arguing about what that shot was/wasn’t but aside from a money grab I think it will continue to be a tool to erode civil liberties and medical privacy regardless of it’s use/effectiveness.

        • Booger-you sound like a disciple of the master of fraud, Dr. Fraudci. He has changed his talking point so many times that his head is on a swivel. After they found that the jab didn’t prevent covid, the CDC, or some of our fearless “leaders,” had to change the definition of vaccine. Early on they had to tell us that there were “breakthrough” infections of those who got the jab. There got to be so incredibly many of those that you rarely hear them use the word breakthrough any more.
          The “vaccine” is doing what it was intended to- letting them find out how many people will fall in line with government dictates.

        • @Gipper’s Ghost

          Basically in below —-

          Don’t confuse what Fauci said in presentation with the science.

          1. “Early on they had to tell us that there were “breakthrough” infections of those who got the jab.” – breakthrough infections happen with every respiratory based virus and a vaccine, always has.

          For example; People who get the flu shot annually still get infected with flu – that’s right, 100% of people who get the flu shot still get infected with the flu if they encounter the flu virus and most do not show any symptoms – the flu shot does not keep you from getting the flu in terms of being infected, it lessens the likely hood of severe symptoms and most will have no symptoms at all even though they are still infected. Respiratory based viruses can not be cured or prevented by a vaccine, all medical science and “medication” or vaccines can do is lessen the likelihood of severe symptoms until the body’s own immune system becomes resistant enough to rid the body of the invading virus. Basically, for a respiratory based virus, generally; The less severe the symptoms in a majority of the population the weaker the virus is that caused those symptoms, the weaker the virus the less the severe symptoms from spreading that weakened virus – until the weakened virus becomes the norm in circulation – and then we begin to see ‘herd’ immunity start to take over in the form of a general adaption of the population immune systems which react to suppress the symptoms of the virus weakened or not bolstered by an overall vaccine schedule (for example, flu shots annually) to keep the ‘herd immunity’ for the majority going to further weaken other strains.

          That’s what vaccines for respiratory based viruses do, they help us reach a level of ‘herd immunity’ and that effect depends on the number of people who are vaccinated.

          If the majority of a general population is not vaccinated towards ‘herd immunity’ it allows the basic virus to mutate more quickly into other strains, and that is what we are seeing now. This is why there is a drive to get as many as possible vaccinated, to get that ‘heard immunity’ factor going in the general population. This is also why you see it being talked about for slowing the spread, they aren’t really taking about eradication instead they are really talking about the ‘heard immunity’ response to decrease the overall effect upon the population which is the best you can hope for with a respiratory based virus in terms of the overall.

          2. “After they found that the jab didn’t prevent covid, the CDC, or some of our fearless “leaders,” had to change the definition of vaccine.” – That’s not true. They never found that the vaccine didn’t prevent covid because its not designed to prevent but rather, basically, to lessen the likelihood of developing symptoms.

          The definition of vaccine is: “a substance used to stimulate the production of antibodies and provide immunity against one or several diseases, prepared from the causative agent of a disease, its products, or a synthetic substitute, treated to act as an antigen without inducing the disease.”

          Immunity does not mean cure nor does it mean prevent (infection) it means “the ability of an organism to resist a particular infection or toxin by the action of specific antibodies or sensitized white blood cells.”

          That’s what the vaccine does, it stimulates the production of antibodies to increase the ability of a person (their system) to resist the infection (to some degree) – not cure or prevent the infection. In other words to lessen the likelihood of developing serious symptoms – in the majority of people. The vaccine does that, period, just as it was designed to do. Vaccines are designed to impart that factor to the majority of people who receive the vaccine, there will always be a portion of a population for which a vaccine does not work well or at all and that’s just how the human body works. There are so many factors at play its impossible to make a vaccine that works in every person 100% of the time, maybe at some time in the far future a few hundred years from now there will be something that works 100% of the time for 100% of a population but we don’t have that yet. A person who is vaccinated against a respiratory based virus can still get infected, its always been that way no matter the virus – its a matter of how severe the symptoms and some people will simply still get severe symptoms because of the way their immune system works or as a result of some other health factor they did not know about.

          The science is there and the science works, period, the vaccine is doing what it was designed to do.

        • @Gipper’s Ghost

          aside from my other reply to you, the term “breakthrough infections” in context with having been vaccinated simply basically means people who developed symptoms to some degree after having been fully immunized (vaccinated). The majority that have been fully immunized (vaccinated) will not develop any severe symptoms that are severe and most will be asymptomatic although still infected.

          I think people are not realizing that immunized (for a respiratory based virus) does not mean cure or prevented, it never has. I don’t think that has been communicated very well to the general public and its been further confused by a portion of the public that immunized (for a respiratory based virus) means a cure. So of course that portion of the public is going have its adherents to exploit that misunderstanding to say the vaccine doesn’t work. Everyone in this comments section who had symptoms but were fully vaccinated had a ‘breakthrough’, including myself, but if you look at the whole of breakthrough you will see the common trend of less severe symptoms which indicates a level of ‘herd immunity’ starting to take hold in a portion of the population. A ‘breakthrough’ does not mean the vaccine is not working, instead for the whole with lesser symptoms it indicates the vaccine worked to lessen symptoms like it was designed to do and indicates a possible level of ‘herd immunity’ starting to take hold in a portion of the population.

        • “Sorry Booger, a vaccine prevents you from acquiring the disease”

          Incorrect, no vaccine is 100% effective at preventing infection.

          There is no vaccine currently available that offers 100% protection, never has been.

          Even polio vaccinations are not 100% effective, and we’ve been developing them for decades.

          “Vaccine Effectiveness
          Two doses of inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) are 90% effective or more against polio; three doses are 99% to 100% effective.

          A person is considered to be fully vaccinated if he or she has received:

          four doses of any combination of IPV and tOPV, or
          a primary series of at least three doses of IPV or trivalent oral poliovirus vaccine (tOPV)
          AND

          The last dose in either series should be given after 4 years of age and at least 6 months after the previous dose.
          Duration of Protection
          It is not known how long people who received IPV will be immune to poliovirus, but they are most likely protected for many years after a complete series of IPV.“

          Even with the max number of dosage they spec 99 to 100% as a range and not an absolute.

        • you do you, fotay. it’s personal- weigh your risks.
          i must say, you seem particularly apologetic towards this desperate attempt to reign in a cytokene storm.
          i’m in the chicken pox party for the vast majority of us.
          cdc revised deaths from covid only in u.s. to 50k range. and look at the age group affected.

        • OK, …Aaaaa….How do I put this?

          I’m an incredible moron!

          I said …”Incorrect, no vaccine is 100% effective at preventing infection.”

          Then I said (IN THE SAME POST) “…polio vaccine (IPV) are … 99% to 100% effective.”

          DOH!! I’m such an imbecile.

          (sigh)..

        • “Sorry Booger, a vaccine prevents you from acquiring the disease“

          Hilarious, according to your Measure, no vaccine ever introduced is a real vaccine because none of them prevent you from “acquiring the disease”.

  7. Glad you’re feeling better. Sounds like just every other trade show I’ve attended over the years.

    Anyone headed to the Great American Outdoor Show in Harrisburg, PA, February 5–13?

    • man, don’t i wish. love how they had their way with the rifle restrictions a couple years ago.
      plus i could see me brudder. hmmm…

  8. avatar Geoff "A day without an apparently brain-damaged mentally-ill demented troll is like a day of warm sunshine" PR

    So, was the porn video convention cancelled? 🙂

  9. “Sorry Booger, a vaccine prevents you from acquiring the disease.“

    This Forum is a laugh a minute!

    Perhaps you might want to consider actually looking up the definition of the word ‘vaccine’ before you go embarrassing yourself.

  10. Our friend 40oz has it right, I am amazed that simple science has somehow escaped 95% of those on this forum.

    But I have to admit, reading the disinformation campaigns concerning “demon seed” and “alien DNA” has been immensely entertaining!

    “The definition of vaccine is: “a substance used to stimulate the production of antibodies and provide immunity against one or several diseases, prepared from the causative agent of a disease, its products, or a synthetic substitute, treated to act as an antigen without inducing the disease.”

    Immunity does not mean cure nor does it mean prevent (infection) it means “the ability of an organism to resist a particular infection or toxin by the action of specific antibodies or sensitized white blood cells.”

    That’s what the vaccine does, it stimulates the production of antibodies to increase the ability of a person (their system) to resist the infection (to some degree) – not cure or prevent the infection. In other words to lessen the likelihood of developing serious symptoms – in the majority of people. The vaccine does that, period, just as it was designed to do.”

    And yes, I have to admit the guilty pleasure of laughing at the poorly educated, please forgive me for being entertained by others’ willful ignorance.

    It is a fault that I work on every day.

    • Is that pre-Fauci definition change or ?

      Regardless, the vaccine was sold as a preventative. It was a lie. A lie designed if for nothing else, to line pockets with billions of dollars.

      • Neither Fauci nor anyone else claimed this vaccine would ‘prevent Covid’, it was always made it clear that this was a tool that could prevent serious illness and death from the disease.

        But you may be right, it’s all a big hoax to support the liberal narrative.

        I just read of a state trooper named Lemay who has stood up for his rights and refused the deadly vaccination, and it’s turned out really well for him!

        Dr. Laura Ingram featured him on her show sometime back, I’m expecting her to have him back on the show soon so he can give a testimonial about how he enjoys such good health by not being vaccinated.

        https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4G1x4bR4Qdo

        • “..And yes, I have to admit the guilty pleasure of laughing at the poorly educated, please forgive me for being entertained by others’ willful ignorance…” Miner49er

          Sorry guys, I know I’m pompous… and unconscionably unsightly…and a gross tasteless amalgam.

          And I might even be a repugnant stench-emitting narcissistic slut.

          So me pretending to be smart is all I have in my vapid sycophant dreadfully obese gluttony of sub-mediocrity I call life.

          But you understand I have to be me, a piteously uncouth lout? Right?

          Miner49er

      • “It hurts me to agree with you on something. As in real, physical pain“

        If you are suffering actual physical pain from merely reading words on a page, you might want to consider seeking professional psychological help.

        Of course, as you distrust current medical science and its practitioners, you might want to consult a witch doctor or shaman of whatever particular made-up religion you follow.

Comments are closed.