Free Republic

A popular Harrisburg outdoors show that was postponed indefinitely because of a controversy over assault weapons will not be rescheduled this year. The Eastern Sports and Outdoor Show had been scheduled to start Feb. 2 at the Farm Show Complex. But its ban on assault weapons in the wake of a Connecticut school shooting led to a backlash and vendor boycott. Organizers indefinitely postponed the event last month.

For a number of years, I visited the Eastern Sports and Outdoor Show in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The show, which is held in a hideous rambling building originally intended to handle livestock, is a genuine monster. For a solid week, people in the tens of thousands come from near and far to grope sporting goods, book hunting and fishing trips, attend demonstrations, and generally see what is what. ESS, as it will hereinafter be referred to, is put on by Reed Exhibitions. Reed is the world’s largest organizer of trade shows and the like; the firm handles 500 events in 39...

The Eastern Sports and Outdoor Show was expected to bring $44 million in direct spending to the region, according to the Hershey Harrisburg Regional Visitors Bureau. Now that the show has been postponed -- with no reschedule date set, and none imminent -- many hotels and restaurants could be in for a difficult winter. "This is a hard time of the year to fill hotels," said Rick Dunlap, a spokesman for the bureau. "A lot of these hoteliers relied on this show to make their budget for the early part of the year." The $44 million in direct spending the...

A massive boycott sparked by the NRA and other gun-rights groups outraged that the nation's largest outdoors show banned the exhibition of assault weapons has caused the show's organizers to abruptly cancel the week-long event in Harrisburg, Pa. The successful boycott was the biggest demonstration of support by the outdoors industry yet against gun control efforts being pushed in Washington and in several states. "Reed Exhibitions has decided to postpone, for now, the Eastern Sports and Outdoor Show given the controversy surrounding its decision to limit the sale or display of modern sporting rifles (also called ARs) at the event....

We the people have spoken.

For Immediate Release: Janurary 22, 2013 Crimson Trace Withdraws from Eastern Sports and Outdoor Show (Wilsonville, OR) - Crimson Trace Corporation, the industry leader in laser sighting systems for personal defense, announces their withdrawl from the Eastern Sports and Outdoor Show February 2nd- 10th in Harrisburg, PA. Despite five years of attendance to serve the over 200,000 consumers in the Harrisburg and surrounding areas for one of the largest outdoor shows in the country, Crimson Trace stands with their industry partners and the NRA, who have decided not to attend in reaction to the decision from Reed Exhibition on displaying...

Here is a list of celebrities, sponsors, and vendors who have pulled out of the Reed Exhibits Eastern Sports and Outdoors Show in Harrisburg, PA for 2013. The show was set to run from Feb 2-10, 2013 and usually attracted hundreds of thousands of visitors. Please Also Remember – Going Live on Feb 2nd – The Start of The Eastern Sports and Outdoors Show – My Northeast classifieds www.MyNortheastClassifieds.com will go live to the public. We will be providing any vendor who has pulled out of the show a FREE centrally located marketplace to sell their items, products, services, etc....

Did you have plans for attending the grand-daddy of sports and outdoor shows, the Eastern Sports and Outdoor Show held in Harrisburg, PA in February? You might want to reconsider. The show’s promoters have banned all references to America’s favorite rifle, the AR-15 and those like it. This is the announcement from their website (you can Google it, but we’re not putting any links, hot or not, to the ESOS website): As a hunting-focused event, we welcome exhibitors who wish to showcase products and firearms that serve the traditional needs of the sport. Clearly, we strongly support the 2nd Amendment....