LAS VEGAS — SHOT Show, the shooting, hunting and outdoor industry’s largest trade show was held Feb. 2-5 at the Las Vegas Convention Center in Las Vegas, Nevada. This year was a banner year for the show, smashing records in its 30th year, posting new highs in attendance, exhibition space, exhibiting companies and media turnout. Anybody who had any type of relationship with hunting, shooting, outdoors, and tactical equipment was probably there.

The show comprised 715,000 square feet of exhibit space, a gain of nearly 60,000 over last year, with 1,950 exhibiting companies, up from last year’s 1,870.

With a total registered attendance of 58,769, the show eclipsed last year’s attendance record of 42,216. The show attracted 30,686 buyers, 1,725 members of the press, 25,854 exhibiting personnel and 504 guests.

For some of you who didn’t attend here are a couple photos:

Before the closing bell had rung, exhibitors had already booked 700,000 square feet of exhibit space for next year’s show in Orlando , Fla.

 When I jumped into the Outdoor industry to film and edit, I had no idea how prevalent camera tricks could be. In many hunting shows, “seeing” should not necessarily be “believing.”

Companies nowadays are either trying too hard to make their work look like a John Moore directed film, a reality show or just simply not trying at all. If you’re going for the cinema look and feel that’s fine, but it is inconsistent to start off talking to the camera as if you know it’s there, then proceed to walk up to your downed game with the camera positioned behind the rack as if to say, “Oh, there he is.” Obviously, the cameraman has already found the deer.

And we all know there aren’t eight cameras in one tree. Why have that many angles of a hunter drawing his bow or of a hunter looking for the buck he just shot? It seems to me a bit superfluous.

Making hits look like misses or placing one hunter with another hunter’s kill are just a couple of tricks often never caught by the viewer. If you pay extra attention you can catch these and more. I’m sure you’ve all watched a show initially presenting the hunter with a full quiver then cutting back to him drawing his bow with some arrows miraculously missing. You may have observed drastic lighting changes indicating a totally different time of day, when it seems only a few seconds have passed. Pay close attention while you watch some hunting shows and I’m sure you will agree that things are not always what they seem.