Post by Ogre on Sept 1, 2013 3:54:24 GMT -5
I'm gonna start off by saying, even though prepping for this was a hassle, I had a lot of fun turning people on to the sport. Here is my detailed account of the ordeal.
Our group of people, 5 that participated we had about 25 years of airsoft experience between us. We arrived in West Branch at 5pm to set up with roughly 3,500 dollars worth of gear and replicas for display. We finished set up around 5:40, Fabulous Fridays start at 6pm so we were ahead of schedule. Our booths consisted of a variety of different gear and replicas, we had a total of 5 AEG M4's on display, a Tri Burst shot gun (unsure of the brand) Camo, MOLLE gear BB's, Optics, a chronograph, a spray painted orange Thunder B, about 8 pairs of Full Seal goggles all ranging in brand, quality and price, and a laptop looped on playing 7 airsoft videos to show people what Airsoft is all about.
We had about 90 people come by and talk to us, countless more glanced over everything, and we had about 20 or more people become seriously engaged with us in conversation and interested in Airsoft. One particular conversation I remember is between a few kids who were up for the weekend from the Saginaw/Flint were talking to us about the different brands we had on display, the pro's and con's of each and were wanting to know how much a decent loadout would cost them and where they could find games in Michigan, With our team's experience we were able to price them out a load out based on what roles they would like to be playing as and were were able to do it for under 300 bucks, which made them seriously think about getting into it. We talked to them about MiA and how that's there best bet for finding games all across Michigan and getting out on a field and playing, To our surprise being that they haven't played airsoft before, they were more interested in Milsim aspect of airsoft then anything else. That's always a neat thing being able to make something sound so interesting that they want to dive into it like that. Since they were from the Saginaw area I gave a shout out to Immortal and MBS airsoft and told them to get in touch with them if they have any questions on airsoft that we couldn't answer or want someone to skirmish with.
We also met a few people who have been playing airsoft for 4 or 5 years and were outfitted about as well as we were but didn't know MiA existed and had just been going to games they found on facebook. I pulled up a link on the computer we had their and they never thought it was so big in Michigan. Their current plans now is to get a crew of their players at the next Northern Lights if its held again in Michigan.
A few Ex Military guys came by and talked with us and got interested in airsoft as well. It was nice being able to talk to them because they understood the Military Simulation part of it very well and actually gave us a few pointers on how to make our airsoft team function better as a unit.
In total here is everything we had displayed
- KWA KM4
- Echo 1 ST6 M4
- G&G Combat Machine
- King Arms M4
- Javelin/Black Ops EBB M4
- KJC NBB P99 (licensed by Black OPS, who knew Walmart carried KJC?)
- Black OPS 1911
- WE Bio-hazard M9
- Tri-burst Shotgun
- Thunder B
- Tactical Flashlights
- Red Dot sights
- NC Star Mildot Scope
- 3 Tac Lights ranging from 150 Lumen to 310
- 4 different brands of BB's
- Flak Jacks
- Bolle T1000's
- Scotts Paintball Goggles
- some random unknown brand Goggles
- 1 Set of Marpat
- 1 Set Of ACU
- 1 Set of Muilticam
- 2 Sets of Woodland
- 1 set of Tiger Stripe
- Crossdraw vest with hydration pouch
- Molle Chest Rig with hydration pouch
- Some sort of Alice Chest Rig from the 80's
- 15 M4 Mags ranging from Midcaps to Dualmags, JG Brand to KWA brand.
- Tactical training knives
- Kill Rags
- Dog Tags
- CO2 Cartridges
- Greengas
- Ammo can filled with KWA bb's
- Chronograph
- Vietnam era GI boots
- Bates Tactical Boots
- Countless other items
- three small tabled to put this all on
On the computer we had these videos playing on Loop:
Operation Irene IX - Flatlander's POV
Operation Northern Lights 4_ Day 2 Long Shot on the Humvee with RPG (priests epic RPG shot)
NL4 Day 2 Capture of Federation Mobile Spawn (shot by Columbus)
Operation_ Red Dawn Airsoft Milsim
Phoenix Tactical Airsoft - The Best CQB in Michigan (I believe a commercial?)
Spaz at the Airhouse 8-18-12
OP Geronimo (X's video)
In Conclusion
The public really took interest and we had a great time answering all their questions, and they had a lot of them. There were no incidents with the police and we did an outstanding job at making sure
that the public didn't get too carried way handling our replica's. I believe we did a good job promoting Airsoft in Michigan, Airsoft safety and firearms safety, I would willing do this same event again and in other cities as well.
I'm gonna go ahead and be my own critic here and talk about the few things that could have been better.
- More Display space, we though 3 tables would be enough for everything, it wasn't we crammed 5 tables worth of gear onto 2.5 tables, (the other half was used for the computer setup)
- Longer event time, Fabulous Fridays officially lasts from 6 till 8, groups kept displaying until about 8:40 so we had 2 hours and 40 minutes of display time, not nearly enough to go as in-depth as I would have wanted.
- Too many M4's! When I realized those were all the AEG's we brought I wanted to bang my head against the wall, especially since I forgot to bring the M16 and AK47 I have.
- Not as many people as usual for Fabulous Fridays due to rain an hour before hand, there were around 350 people in downtown West Branch, it should have been higher, especially for a holiday weekend.
- Our booth was isolated, we should have set up closer to G's Pizza
- I was sick with a cold the entire time, considering how weird the whether was that day, I'm surprised I feel good enough to get online and type all this, especially at 4:35 am.
- Some D-bag came up to me when I was along heading to my truck to get tissues said we were disgracing our countries Military by wearing any sort of Military camo and playing the sport that we play. He was drunk and was ejected by the police later on.
- One thing that scared the SHIT out of me after the event as my house, was that 2 State troopers and a detective pulled into my Driveway (Not supposed to entire private property without a warrant)I thought there might have been an issue with our event that they were coming to bust us for considering we had permission for the county police, and city police along with permission from the City of West Branch to bring our replica's into public, that state law might say it's still illegal to have airsoft replica's in public even with orange tips on them, and since State Law supersedes local law that we might be arrested or fined for what we did. Turns out they were just looking for a group of people who have been driving around drunk firing real steal weapons from their cars into the woods, they said they heard gunshots from my driveway and came to investigate it. They said they were sitting around and they heard them. I explained to them that the only gun we had on hand was a CO2 pistol and we had just fired that off about 40 seconds earlier, which means they were literately staked out right around the corner. They left but lingered around the area, I saw one of them from my window take a flashlight and go look in the window of my car that was sitting in the driveway, (Illegal) then go back to the squad car, at which point I approached them, and requested they leave because they were upsetting my dogs and I wanted to get some sleep since I was sick and they left. They complied and left. Their behavior struck me as odd, if they were looking for some Yahoo's from downstate up for labor day weekend who were parting a little to hard why did they keep hanging around the area. Yeah completely unrelated to the promotional event, just odd as hell.
Our group of people, 5 that participated we had about 25 years of airsoft experience between us. We arrived in West Branch at 5pm to set up with roughly 3,500 dollars worth of gear and replicas for display. We finished set up around 5:40, Fabulous Fridays start at 6pm so we were ahead of schedule. Our booths consisted of a variety of different gear and replicas, we had a total of 5 AEG M4's on display, a Tri Burst shot gun (unsure of the brand) Camo, MOLLE gear BB's, Optics, a chronograph, a spray painted orange Thunder B, about 8 pairs of Full Seal goggles all ranging in brand, quality and price, and a laptop looped on playing 7 airsoft videos to show people what Airsoft is all about.
We had about 90 people come by and talk to us, countless more glanced over everything, and we had about 20 or more people become seriously engaged with us in conversation and interested in Airsoft. One particular conversation I remember is between a few kids who were up for the weekend from the Saginaw/Flint were talking to us about the different brands we had on display, the pro's and con's of each and were wanting to know how much a decent loadout would cost them and where they could find games in Michigan, With our team's experience we were able to price them out a load out based on what roles they would like to be playing as and were were able to do it for under 300 bucks, which made them seriously think about getting into it. We talked to them about MiA and how that's there best bet for finding games all across Michigan and getting out on a field and playing, To our surprise being that they haven't played airsoft before, they were more interested in Milsim aspect of airsoft then anything else. That's always a neat thing being able to make something sound so interesting that they want to dive into it like that. Since they were from the Saginaw area I gave a shout out to Immortal and MBS airsoft and told them to get in touch with them if they have any questions on airsoft that we couldn't answer or want someone to skirmish with.
We also met a few people who have been playing airsoft for 4 or 5 years and were outfitted about as well as we were but didn't know MiA existed and had just been going to games they found on facebook. I pulled up a link on the computer we had their and they never thought it was so big in Michigan. Their current plans now is to get a crew of their players at the next Northern Lights if its held again in Michigan.
A few Ex Military guys came by and talked with us and got interested in airsoft as well. It was nice being able to talk to them because they understood the Military Simulation part of it very well and actually gave us a few pointers on how to make our airsoft team function better as a unit.
In total here is everything we had displayed
- KWA KM4
- Echo 1 ST6 M4
- G&G Combat Machine
- King Arms M4
- Javelin/Black Ops EBB M4
- KJC NBB P99 (licensed by Black OPS, who knew Walmart carried KJC?)
- Black OPS 1911
- WE Bio-hazard M9
- Tri-burst Shotgun
- Thunder B
- Tactical Flashlights
- Red Dot sights
- NC Star Mildot Scope
- 3 Tac Lights ranging from 150 Lumen to 310
- 4 different brands of BB's
- Flak Jacks
- Bolle T1000's
- Scotts Paintball Goggles
- some random unknown brand Goggles
- 1 Set of Marpat
- 1 Set Of ACU
- 1 Set of Muilticam
- 2 Sets of Woodland
- 1 set of Tiger Stripe
- Crossdraw vest with hydration pouch
- Molle Chest Rig with hydration pouch
- Some sort of Alice Chest Rig from the 80's
- 15 M4 Mags ranging from Midcaps to Dualmags, JG Brand to KWA brand.
- Tactical training knives
- Kill Rags
- Dog Tags
- CO2 Cartridges
- Greengas
- Ammo can filled with KWA bb's
- Chronograph
- Vietnam era GI boots
- Bates Tactical Boots
- Countless other items
- three small tabled to put this all on
On the computer we had these videos playing on Loop:
Operation Irene IX - Flatlander's POV
Operation Northern Lights 4_ Day 2 Long Shot on the Humvee with RPG (priests epic RPG shot)
NL4 Day 2 Capture of Federation Mobile Spawn (shot by Columbus)
Operation_ Red Dawn Airsoft Milsim
Phoenix Tactical Airsoft - The Best CQB in Michigan (I believe a commercial?)
Spaz at the Airhouse 8-18-12
OP Geronimo (X's video)
In Conclusion
The public really took interest and we had a great time answering all their questions, and they had a lot of them. There were no incidents with the police and we did an outstanding job at making sure
that the public didn't get too carried way handling our replica's. I believe we did a good job promoting Airsoft in Michigan, Airsoft safety and firearms safety, I would willing do this same event again and in other cities as well.
I'm gonna go ahead and be my own critic here and talk about the few things that could have been better.
- More Display space, we though 3 tables would be enough for everything, it wasn't we crammed 5 tables worth of gear onto 2.5 tables, (the other half was used for the computer setup)
- Longer event time, Fabulous Fridays officially lasts from 6 till 8, groups kept displaying until about 8:40 so we had 2 hours and 40 minutes of display time, not nearly enough to go as in-depth as I would have wanted.
- Too many M4's! When I realized those were all the AEG's we brought I wanted to bang my head against the wall, especially since I forgot to bring the M16 and AK47 I have.
- Not as many people as usual for Fabulous Fridays due to rain an hour before hand, there were around 350 people in downtown West Branch, it should have been higher, especially for a holiday weekend.
- Our booth was isolated, we should have set up closer to G's Pizza
- I was sick with a cold the entire time, considering how weird the whether was that day, I'm surprised I feel good enough to get online and type all this, especially at 4:35 am.
- Some D-bag came up to me when I was along heading to my truck to get tissues said we were disgracing our countries Military by wearing any sort of Military camo and playing the sport that we play. He was drunk and was ejected by the police later on.
- One thing that scared the SHIT out of me after the event as my house, was that 2 State troopers and a detective pulled into my Driveway (Not supposed to entire private property without a warrant)I thought there might have been an issue with our event that they were coming to bust us for considering we had permission for the county police, and city police along with permission from the City of West Branch to bring our replica's into public, that state law might say it's still illegal to have airsoft replica's in public even with orange tips on them, and since State Law supersedes local law that we might be arrested or fined for what we did. Turns out they were just looking for a group of people who have been driving around drunk firing real steal weapons from their cars into the woods, they said they heard gunshots from my driveway and came to investigate it. They said they were sitting around and they heard them. I explained to them that the only gun we had on hand was a CO2 pistol and we had just fired that off about 40 seconds earlier, which means they were literately staked out right around the corner. They left but lingered around the area, I saw one of them from my window take a flashlight and go look in the window of my car that was sitting in the driveway, (Illegal) then go back to the squad car, at which point I approached them, and requested they leave because they were upsetting my dogs and I wanted to get some sleep since I was sick and they left. They complied and left. Their behavior struck me as odd, if they were looking for some Yahoo's from downstate up for labor day weekend who were parting a little to hard why did they keep hanging around the area. Yeah completely unrelated to the promotional event, just odd as hell.