Midwest Traditional Archery Expo 2011 Story and Photos - Tradshops.comTradshops.com

The Midwest Traditional and Primitive Archery Expo was held last weekend (March 4-6, 2011) in Waterloo, IA at the Five Sullivan Brothers Convention Center. It was the first year for this event, which many would love to see become an annual affair. Doors opened on Friday to a rather small crowd, but Saturday went much better with crowds coming from all four corners of the Iowa, as well as Minnesota, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Wisconsin, and beyond. The final vendor count was 37, with bowyers, archery shops, hunting gear and organizations. See the list of shops below and the vendor map in the images.

I spent most of the weekend in the Iowa Traditional Bowhunters Society booth, which didn’t give me much opportunity to talk to vendors but it DID leave me with the opportunity to talk to a lot of the attendees. Much of the feedback that I received was very positive – they were impressed with the facility, the number of vendors, and the number of people that were there. Judging from the long Saturday line-up at the Bow Try-Out range, it seems that the vendors were kept active as well. Talking with the bowyers afterward revealed that was the case, and a number of folks went home with new bows during the weekend.

Here you’ll find a number of photos from the event, with more coverage below:

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There were seminars both Saturday and Sunday, including Steve Gorr (bowhunting Africa), Paul Shore (Bowfishing), Dan Brockman (bowhunting western whitetails), Gene Winter (Primitive Archery), and G. Fred Asbell (instinctive shooting). I only had time to attend Asbell’s seminar, and it was literally standing room only once everyone had packed into the room.

The facility itself was fantastic – the expo hall at the Five Sullivan Brothers Convention Center is clean, spacious, well-lit, and seemed to have ample room for booths, shooting, and vendor-access during setup and teardown. Also nearby on the ground floor you will find the meeting rooms where the weekend’s seminars were held. Upstairs you will find windows that give a panoramic view of the expo floor, and meeting rooms which are where the vendor banquet was held. Perhaps most importantly for visitors and vendors that bring their families – the Convention Center connects via skywalk to the Ramada hotel across the street. This makes it easy for family to come and go from the hotel throughout the event without any travel, making this a definite benefit for people wanting to bring their children. There is plenty of parking across the street in a public parking garage.

In short, this seemed to be an excellent first-year event for the Expo and it sounds like we can expect to see it again next year. I would encourage everyone that attended to contact Tom Colstad and TradArchersWorld.com to thank them for putting on the event, and encourage them to bring it back next year. With all the learning experience that a first-event always holds, I’m sure the 2012 Expo will been an even bigger and better event.

Vendor List: