The BBQ comp was kind of tongue in cheek with all the different preferences in BBQ. In my mind when I thought of BBQ competition, i automatically thought back to a church cookoff where the hardest thing someone had to drink was either black coffee in the morning cooking or sweet tea. Of course any kind of booze would be a red flag and a no go.
But hey! Thats what this is for! Throw out ideas and if some one can think of a problem for it, let everyone know it!
Firehouse Subs does a excellent job with individual
boxed sandwiches with meat, cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, chips, cookie, mayo and mustard packets for around $10.
In my experience they will work with your budget.
Looks like they have one close by in Newberry.
They even deliver.
Pre-sell lunch tickets when ordering Gathering tickets.
Everything is prepaid so no time wasted with folks having to deal with handling money.
OR
$10 gets you lunch with chips and drink.
Menu to be determined / BBQ - Burger - Hot Dogs -Tacos
Then you go to the food truck folks and let them tell you what they can offer for $10
OR
Have each of the 50 vendors donate $100 each = 5K
Somebody can easily feed 500 folks with that money.
The Atilla guy I got a pulled pork sandwich from had his cash drawer so over stuffed he was just leaving I’m betting a couple grand on the counter.
Dear PSA booth manager,
Put QR codes on the demo guns. I would have bought this one online at the event. I had cell signal. Yet I waffled and asked around about what I shot.
I posted this elsewhere. The QR codes help take stress off the booth staff from customers who want to play “stump the chump” and won’t buy because booth staff don’t have the elevator pitch for a model. Like a Sabre rifle.
Thank you for your consideration,
MitchbSC
i’ve made a note about the QR codes on our guns that are there at shot, so that someone can scan that code, and then be taken to the website where that gun is, and purchase the exact firearm model and type that they are shooting at the gathering. If folks dont buy them, they can at least look up all the stats and stuff on the gun, and then decide if they wanted to buy it or not.
these are all good ideas guys. thank you for them and keep them coming!!
The only problem I can see with the QR codes is different service providers. For example, at the SIG booth when we had to do the liability waiver, my phone pulled everything up instantly. My buddy who was with me, his phone was not pulling anything up at all. I let him use my phone to do the waiver. Its not a deal breaker but it is something that needs to be taken into consideration.
Along the lines of something similar to @BradE mentioned with the McDonalds picture board, maybe extra guns that attendees can see and touch that will not be fired but are copies of what is on the fire line.
yeah coverage did suck for me too, but theres not much we can do about that. I was on verizon, im not sure what your provider is so it could be a provider issue.
I must have held my mouth just right to get Verizon to work great for me lol but again not the biggest deal but thats the only issue I can see with it.
Limited marketing spend dollars vs. expected impact to sales in targeted customer segments. It’s the same everywhere. 
FWIW. I believe folks like PWS and Rugged Suppressors did the annual Pew Party sponsored by Silencer Shop on the 23rd in Texas instead of The Gathering this year.
Prior to attending the Gathering, I had never heard of Krate Tactical. After seeing it over and over again everywhere I went, I saw they had their own booth. Very friendly and really helpful. The elephant hangers sold me on it and I wanted to buy a 18" combo. They were sold out on the 18" plates but they said if I paid now, they would ship to me for free! I couldn’t say no so two weeks later I see it onbmy front porch! Really excited to shoot some steel now.
I say all this because there are some companies that are not household names (like Springfield, Glock or Winchester to name a few) but are great companies that sell great stuff at affordable prices. I know space is limited but a few more booths that sell merchandise at the event would be nice. My Southern Tactical comes to mind when I saw KCI’s poptart mags. All the meme magazines and parts I think would sell well.
i agree, but that is kinda what the vendor villages are for… so we’ll jus tneed to try to grow that.
Does PSA reach out to companies as possible vendors or do companies reach out to PSA? As with anything of this magnitude, I am sure there are blacklisted companies as well for various reasons.
i’m not sure how it happens / started/ continues to get vendors. it may be that PSA called them the first time and the subsequent times PSA let them know when it would be, and those vendors would like to come back automatically… i’d bet though the more that i think about it, PSA probably contacts the vendors to come to the gathering themselves.
This is why I hope we can be a vendor next year!
If it wasn’t for this forum, I would have never heard of Lynx Defense. I’m pretty sure I worked down the road from where yalls shop is at many years ago. I’d love to see an eastern NC company there! Especially one I’ve been looking at buying from already.
Awesome! Really is a small world. We know our stuff isn’t for everyone (yet) but just getting our name out there helps!
Do yall have a storefront by chance? I don’t live in those parts anymore but I’d make the drive and play a round at Cardinal.
Happy Anniversary.
We only have our manufacturing facility, which you can walk into, but there’s not much to see.
Another gun company that would be great to see out there would be Ruger. Now that they have acquired Marlin, seeing the new lever actions would be sweet. Also, Ruger could showcase all of their various firearms that are exclusives. Sure they make ARs but their Wranglers and Super Wranglers I think are a hot item for them right now so that could be a fun cheap firearm to feed. Of course a 10/22 would have to be there.
Another company that I think would be fun but would probably upset some people would be Hi-Point. An American company with an outstanding warranty on firearms made in America. They leaned into the “Yeet Cannon” so they definitely listen to their consumers. Or at least they listen to feedback. For alot of people, it may actually be the only time they would shoot a Hi-Point.