Great American Outdoor Show In Harrisburg, PA Promises Another Year Of Interactive Opportunities

HARRISBURG, PA. – The 2015 Great American Outdoor Show, held February 7-15 at the

Pennsylvania Farm Show Complex in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, will feature several exciting

interactive events and contests in addition to the show’s more than 1,000 hunting, fishing, and

outdoor sports exhibitors.

The NRA launched the show as a replacement for the long-running Eastern Sports and Outdoor Show after a one-year void of any show in Harrisburg. That hole in a decades-long run for the largest consumer sports and outdoor show anywhere came about after Reed Exhibitions canceled the old show in 2013, in the wake of widespread negative reaction by exhibitors and show visitors to Reed's ban on modern assault-style rifles and accessories at the show.

Jeff Poole, shows and exhibits managing director for the NRA, said the 2015 show will again offer all members of the family multiple chances "to test their outdoor sports skills in a fun environment."
The popular Family Fun Zone, which the NRA added to the show's offerings last year, will be back again this year with its kid-friendly stations for camouflage face painting, magnetic fishing, barrel racing, wildlife identification, suction cup archery, LaserShot, and more.

Perennial favorites like the live trout fishing pond and the CastingKids competition also will be back the year.

The Pyramyd Air Gun Range will give all show goers a chance to try a variety of air guns in the company's extensive inventory, while a dozen archery shooting lanes will be open for visitors to try out the latest bows from every major bow manufacturer.

The NRA Sports' Three-Gun Experience, will simulate the competitive shooting that normally involves modern rifles, pistols and shotguns, but in the safe and fun environment of AirSoft technology.

The 3D Bowhunter Challenge offers a landscaped, indoor range of life-sized animal targets, while archery tag fills the large arena and LaPorte Archery brings areal archery shooting at flying discs to the show.

Game calling competitions are scheduled many days of the show, including duck, goose, turkey, barred owl, elk and predator.

Entries in the taxidermy contest will be judged the day before the show opens, but will then be on exhibit throughout the show.

More than 200 seminars and demonstrations by celebrities and experts in topics ranging from hunting and fishing to cooking and home defense will be offered through a varying schedule each day of the show.

Show hours will be 9 a.m.-7 p.m. Saturdays, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sundays and 10 a.m.-7 p.m. weekdays.
Admission will be $13 for adults, $6 for children ages 6-12, $10 for seniors 65 and older, $22 for a two-day pass and $10 per ticket bought in a group of 10.
Learn more at the Great American Outdoor Show website. 

Massive New Great American Outdoor Show Debuts

By John Hayes / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

In the year since one of America's biggest outdoors shows shot itself in the foot, the National Rifle Association has retooled the event, attempting to recast its public image as a family-oriented advocate of the outdoors lifestyle.

The new NRA-sponsored Great American Outdoor Show debuts Feb. 1-9 in Harrisburg at the site of the former Eastern Sports and Outdoors Show.

Last January, weeks after the Newtown, Conn., shooting tragedy, the 65-year-old expo's British owners announced a ban on the sale of semi-automatic rifles. In an internationally publicized demonstration of pro-gun solidarity, hundreds of vendors boycotted the event including non-firearms firms such as Bass Pro Shops, ThermaCell and the Pennsylvania Independent Oil and Gas Association. The vendor boycott killed the expo, costing the Harrisburg business community some $80 million and many jobs.

The NRA is promoting the new expo as the world's biggest outdoors show with more family activities, country music concerts and, of course, more guns including the high-performance modern sporting rifles that had been at the center of the controversy.

Jeremy Greene, NRA director of general operations, said reviving the expo was good business.
"We had been a participant in that show in Harrisburg for over 35 years ... [and have] 900,000 members within 300 miles of Harrisburg," he said. "The media pick up on our Second Amendment stand, but in addition we advocate for firearm safety, marksmanship and education training. The NRA has always been very much in tune with the outdoors industry in general. This isn't a gun show, it's about the lifestyle."

Seminars and celebrity speakers will focus on fishing, hunting, cooking and other outdoor lifestyle activities -- not firearm advocacy. But there will be guns -- an entire "shooting sports hall" filled with them. Buyers, however, can't just walk out with a new toy. They'll be processed through the FBI's National Instant Criminal Background Check System. The exchange will not take place at the venue. Approved buyers can pick up their guns at a federally licensed firearm dealer located near their homes.