Recap: First Ever G.O.A.L.S. Event This Past Weekend

This past weekend our team attended the Gun Owners Advocacy and Leadership Summit in Knoxville TN. Its a mouthful so everyone just calls it GOALS or the “GOA Show.”

A view of the front of the Knoxville Convention Center

This was the event's first year and so you expect there to be a few hiccups. Our team had 3 different booths in the exhibit hall along with many other vendors and companies.

All in all the show was logistically well executed. The communication from the GOA to the vendors seemed acceptable and things happened on time and as expected.

There were presentations, seminars, and classes provided throughout the weekend as well and the feedback I heard from attendees was very positive.

The attendance was not impressive. I didn't hear a final official number but from the official number for Saturday, adding an estimate for Sunday's attendance I would say there were between 6500 and 7000 attendees.

GOA told us there were 10,000 people pre-registered and they hoped at one point to have as many as 50,000 attendees but when it's your first year everything is a bit of a guess isn't it?

For attendees the relatively low number of people there was a positive as it was comfortable and easy to have a conversation with vendors and friends etc.

For vendors the response seemed a little split. Most vendors I talked to felt disappointed in the low attendance but there were certainly a few who were very happy with the traffic.

One of our booths at the show.

Right now I feel the GOA is a very important organization for our 2nd amendment rights. The recent upsets at the NRA have a lot more Americans looking for a lobbying group they can trust to represent our interests and the GOA has up to this point proven itself reliable and effective.

I hope, assuming the event continues in future years, that they look at additional ways to promote it and raise awareness.

For the many of you who stopped by one of our booths and said hi, thank you very much for coming and supporting our business. The economic situation has been challenging for a lot of Americans and a lot of small businesses like ours and we're grateful for those who continue to consider us as a part of their gun owner journey!