Great Western Sportfishing Show - Any Kayak Stuff There?

Looks like the Great Western Sportfishing Show is going to be in Spokane in early March.  Has anyone ever been to this event in Spokane?  Would a guy looking at kayak fishing gear and realted topics get his money worth at this event? 

somehow, unless Pole or Zee is there, i doubt it..

Haven't heard much about it. Probably since it's pretty far from major metro areas so not much of a attendance to get kayak fishing related companies to go. So far you'll only see kayak fishing companies got to large shows since they need the most bang for their buck. I'm looking forward to when that all changes though!

This show gets major kayak fishing love: http://www.fredhall.com/

Z

That's too bad.  There is a growing market in the greater Spokane, Couer d'Alene are for muscle powered water craft.  Between duck hunting the smaller waterways and all the great non motorized lakes around here, you'd think it would be worth the investment from retailers.

Hopefully, sites like this and guys that enjoy this sport will increase the market exposure to the people that enjoy other muscle powered sports, but haven't been exposed to what all you can do on a yak.  When a buddy of mine, Fishn-jay on the norcal site, told me he was getting into yak fishing, I thought he had gone mad.  I think I said something like "in one of those tippy sit-inside death traps...no way dude."  Well, after some exposure and education...I was sold. 

If I were to put my "prognosticator" hat on, I'd say that we'll see more of a kayak sportsman presence at next winter's shows.  This is based solely on how I see the size of the market unfolding in the PNW and how big it had to get in NorCal before this happened.  We're at 450 +/-  members this year.  By the end of the year, we'll see 800 +/- member here and manufactures will take note.  The one thing that may limit this is the state of the economy and reduced marketing budgets.  However, this may work in our favor too as shows will be looking for something to draw more participation.  "It" will happen!!!

-Allen

450 plus members that is cool. How many are active? Could the nwka have a both at a sportsman show? How does the funding work with something like that?

We've had 92 members active (signed on) in the last week and about 140 active (signed on) in the last month.  We get about 100,000 hits per month and growing (after subtracting out search engine crawlers).

Booths costs money.  We don't have the funds do it by ourselves.  This is a free site after all.  But we can lobby the event organizers or participating manufacturers to sponsor a kayak fishing booth and man it via volunteers.  That's the way I've seen it done at other shows.

-Allen

Booths definitely cost money.  The outfit I work for is sponsoring a a booth at this years Bighorn Outdoor Show in Spokane.  The event spans four days and I think the booth for us was right under $400.00, not counting the materials we spent on display items.  If you were selling something, that would be a bit easier to swallow, but information only would be tough. 

Some of the shows around here are $2000 or more per booth.

-Allen

Some of the shows around here are $2000 or more per booth.

-Allen

Yeah, I was gonna say, $400 is cheap!

Z