Gun Shows

Other than two days of sweating and being bored, gun shows can be fun. With luck, you can eat lunch at the snack bar, paying three times more than it’s worth, and only get a mild case of diarrhea. With so many collectors, dealers, and individual gun owners, where else can you go and lie and be lied to so much, trade a junker for a worse junker, and just enjoy yourself? There are too many shows to hit them all.

It’s not unusual for any show to share dates with another in a city within 50 miles, which doesn’t help insofar as sales are concerned and can be a promoter’s nightmare. Making It Work Still, gun shows can be useful for promoting business, particularly the local shows. You have to look at shows in a light of public relations and getting new customers. The fellow who bought a gun (junker, probably) at the last show is having trouble with it so he will be asking you to hold his hand.

Additionally, most gunsmiths have some guns to sell and hopefully buyers will but keep in mind that we live on gunsmithing, not gun sales. I sell gunsmithing first and last, though if someone manages to pass up the other 300 tables of guns he might buy one of mine. Given hundreds and thousands of guns offered at these shows it is getting harder to sell what I call standard guns so I don’t try. I exhibit differently.

First, I have a display of custom rifles and restocked shotguns that I’ve built, repaired, or worked on. Years ago, I cut a military Mauser in half so I could show just how the gun was built. In addition, I have a couple of displays with firearms completely stripped and all the parts fastened to the boards with identification of each part. I also have before/after examples of some of my work. I take a rusty barrel and polish and blue half of it to highlight the difference and what I can do.

Likewise, I have an old stock with one side finished and the other rough. This has been good for me. What is needed to make these gun shows work is to have a "stopper" that attracts. After all, there are rows of tables with tons of the same guns, so you have to be different. People that are intrigued and looking at your varied and different display can bring you some customers. In displaying your work you have an opportunity to answer a ton of gunsmithing questions and, most important, pick up new customers.

Hand Outs I go a step further. I have a one-sheet handout I give to everyone with a short history of who we are and what we offer. I don’t quote prices but do list a 15% "gunshow discount" for any job over $50.00 if the person presents this paper at my shop within 60 days of the date of the show. This approach has worked for me so I still use it. I find that with four shows in my town each year it only pays me to attend the one in or around May. Why you ask?

This gets the customer interested before he thinks about a summer vacation and spends all his money there. A fall show often competes with hunting seasons and is a time a customer doesn’t want to tie his gun up. A show too early in the year has the income tax specter hanging over them. You can’t help but talk to at least 100 people over two days. Out of those hundred it’s possible to get 25 new customers over the following year. Don’t expect more then that and you won’t be disappointed.

If you consider an expenditure of $100.00 for your table and don’t count your time, this is a very small amount for each new customer. Also consider that your displays have been seen by hundreds more. While these potential customers likely won’t show up directly, they may remember you during some discussion with a gun owning friend and mention having seen you answering questions and your displays at the show. I can’t think of a better public relations effort.

On top of all that, there aren’t many gunsmiths displaying at gun shows. Parting Thoughts Take the same table each year and keep thinking up ways to come up with better displays. While cleaning up my shop (would you believe me if I said it didn’t need it?) I painted all the benches white, put a clean shirt on, and took a bunch of pictures of different operations and guns being worked on.

I took the best photos showing me at work and had them printed in 8×10 frames, mounting four in two separate columns to fasten at the back of the table. You would be surprised at the people who stop to look at them. I’m now working on a video of the same idea that I can run on a loop. Gun shows can be a hassle but there is plenty of solid potential for promoting your gunsmithing business. Consider yourself an educator demonstrating your craft and showing off your work.

This puts the "show" back into a gun show and gives attendees (and new customers) something to learn and talk about, especially among the many rows of identical guns for sale. AG