This year, we had the honor and privilege of being invited out to participate in the Utah Shooters’ event, Shootah. The event itself was a one-day-long get together, where industry people from around the state of Utah were able to meet up with other freedom loving Utahans. A multitude of classes were available for attendees, and the vendors had a great opportunity to not only connect with each other, but also with current and future customers.
In this post, I’m going to discuss our thoughts on Shootah as an event. Spoiler alert: we had a kick-ass time.
What is Shootah?
Shootah is an industry range day that takes place in the state of Utah. It is hosted by Utah Shooters, and is home to a solid number of training events each year. For attendees, it is an opportunity to meet with some of their favorite companies up close and personal. For vendors, it’s a networking opportunity to work with companies that are local, as well as an opportunity to meet with customers face-to-face.
If you have never been to any industry range day before, then you are definitely missing out. Vendors, as well as the hosts, generally have a lot of stuff that they are giving away near the range. It’s also a great opportunity to test-fire some weapon systems that you’ve been eyeballing for a really long time. Automatics, suppressors, short-barreled rifles, these are all pretty common place at industry range day events.
So, if you’ve never been to an industry range day before, you need to fix that as soon as possible.
Who is at Shootah?
Utah is a very firearm friendly state. It’s also a very tax friendly state. As a result, there are a lot of people that work in the firearms industry who base their business out of Utah. Shootah is an annual event that brings as many people from the gun industry together as possible. While not every one who visits the show, or who sets up a vendor booth at the show is from Utah, a sizeable chunk of the people there are Utahans, and Utah based organizations.
We saw people from all walks of life in the state of Utah at Shootah this year. That includes training and shooting clubs like UT-45, all the way down to small boutique holster manufacturers. So, if you’re looking for a direct answer to who attends Shootah, then the answer is anyone who feels like making the drive out to a kick-ass range day.
Our Top Vendors for 2021.
There were a ton of vendors at Shootah this year. Even we had a booth! For that reason, it’s kind of hard for us to narrow down who our favorite booths were. In total, over 60 local Utah companies from the firearms and outdoors world showed up to the event to host a booth. To show the variety and diversity in the amount of booths, there was everything from us, a small tech company, to ReadyGunner, who brought an M134 minigun to the range. If you twisted my arm though, and made me pick just five booths, my list would look like this.
While these guys would probably be my top five, that doesn’t mean the other booths and vendors weren’t great. From the perspective of a shooter showing up to have a good time at the range, the entire line-up was great. There was a number of companies putting on great training courses for attendees, and also there was a ton of cool firearms to shoot. On top of that, there was an absolute ton of giveaways that occurred at the event as well.
My Thoughts on Shootah From a Vendor Perspective.
From a vendor perspective, Shootah was definitely a worth-while time. As a tech company, it’s easy for us to just skip events like this. You can’t get any programming done out in the middle of a range where there is zero substantial internet connectivity. That said, getting out to Shootah was an absolute eye opener for us. This is the first time in five years that we have gotten out to connect with the industry face-to-face, and it was an eye opener.
Not only did Shootah allow us to connect with our users in a meaningful way, it also afforded us priceless networking opportunities. Through some of those networking opportunities, I’m sure we’ll open new doors that will allow us to grow as a company inside of this industry. On top of this, we met with some great local content creators. We don’t want to mention any names just yet, because that’s their place and not ours. That said however, we are looking forward to developing those relationships, and seeing those creators grow on and with Full30.
From a vendor’s perspective, Shootah was an absolute win. Not only was it an eye-opener for us as a company, it was a great way for us to get in touch with our people.
Final Rounds Down Range.
At the end of the day, Shootah was a great time. I’m really glad that we got out there and had the opportunity to set up shop. We learned a few things to better our booth for future events, and had a really good time meeting with old and new friends alike. It was also an amazing opportunity to connect with some of you guys from our user-base. You’ll definitely be seeing us at more industry trade-shows and range events in the future.
Special shoutout and thanks to Utah Shooters for having us out!
Let us know down in the comments if you’re from the state of Utah. Did you attend Shootah this year? If you did, were you one of the people that stopped by our booth and took a guess at how much .22 ammo we had hiding in the ammunition can? Also, tell us what event you’re looking forward to the most. Maybe we’ll check it out and try to make the trip to see you guys.