fieldandstreamexpo.com
The Kentucky Outdoor Life/Field & Stream Expo outdoor show is moving down the Ohio River from Louisville to Paducah. The westward move was announced at a hastily called press conference a couple months ago, and the show will launch Jan. 17 at the Paducah-McCracken County Convention and Expo Center.
The center is perched on the Ohio River, barely a stone’s throw from downtown.
The show has been held at Louisville’s Kentucky Exposition Center—arguably the state’s primary convention center/public arena show location—for the past six years.
The expo is a weekend extravaganza that dresses up three often cold and dreary winter days with nearly 140,000 square feet packed with hunting, fishing, camping, and other outdoor goodies and services designed and targeted to lure sportsmen off the couch, away from the big screen TV, and into a clean, warm, well-lit place lined with the booths of outfitters displaying and selling their wares. I’m a regular attendee.
The expo is a production of Bonnier Events. The Paducah show will be the first of five that Bonnier will stage 2020. The Kentucky show will be followed by expos in Lansing, Michigan; Columbus, Ohio; Madison, Wisconsin; and Lakeland, Florda.
But why the move from the state’s largest city to a jewel of the Jackson Purchase?
I ask Chris O’Hara, vertical outdoor director for Bonnier Events and the guy who, flanked by a handful of local politicians and dignitaries inside a nearly empty cavernous hall of the convention center, made the press conference announcement.
“We couldn’t get the dates we wanted, so we decided we would start fresh,” he said, noting that attendance at the Louisville location also had “flatlined” a bit.
Bonnier brass discussed taking show to another state (North Carolina was under consideration) but ultimately decided to keep the January show in Kentucky. The state—and particularly western Kentucky’s red-hot deer hunting—was a strong incentive.
Kentucky is also gaining a well-deserved reputation as a trophy deer destination state.
“In the outdoor industry, western Kentucky and this region is just as hot as a firecracker,” O’Hara said. “We looked at Owensboro, and we looked at Lexington, but they didn’t have the right facilities or dates.
“And we needed to stay in an outdoor lifestyle location. This is just where we need to be.”
Paducah has another advantage: Location. Location. Location.
O’Hara said that about 90 percent of show attendees are pulled from within a two-hour driving distance of the site. It didn’t take him long to learn that about 450,000 sportsmen with hunting and fishing licenses live within two hours of Paducah, providing a multistate (Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee and Kentucky) customer base.
Sportsmen are coveted at these shows.
“If we could get 15 to 20 percent of those people, that would be a home run,” he said.
The show will have both a local and international flavor and will largely target hunters and fishermen. Deer hunters can have their mounts scored and displayed, and hunting and fishing seminars featuring industry leaders will be scheduled throughout the show’s three-day run.
But O’Hara stressed that the Expo will have something for nearly everything outdoors—from big game hunting and sport fishing to camping, boating, biking, hiking and bird-watching.
“If there’s an outdoor activity you’re interested in, you’ll want to be here,” he said.
Show pricing had not been set at press time, but O’Hara said it would be family friendly.
“Very family friendly. That’s my goal,” he said. “I want families to attend and not even have to think about the money they spent to get in.”
The show offers free parking and plenty of it, according to O’Hara. It was one of the perks that helped land the show in Paducah.
“When I spoke with Michelle [convention center executive director Michelle Campbell] and she said there was no charge for parking, I said that’s a home run for attendance right out of the gate,” O’Hara concluded. “Everywhere we go, paying to park is always one of the biggest complaints we hear. So free parking. That’s good. Very good.”
The Kentucky Outdoor Life/Field & Stream Expo will be held Jan. 17-19 at the Paducah McCracken County Convention and Expo Center, 415 Park Street, Paducah. Show hours are 2-8 p.m. Friday, 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday, and 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday.
For more information, visit fieldandstreamexpo.com.