I went to the Great Western gun show at Fair Park this weekend.  I was an OK show, although it wasn’t quite what I’d expected.  It seemed smaller than what I had thought it would be.  Perhaps that was just because of the way the hall was laid out.  If someone is interested in old military or old west stuff, then it was probably a good show.  I just don’t have as much interest in those things, so I only spent a couple of hours there.

Some things the show’s promoters should address before the next one:

• Better directions are needed.  The flier simply listed “2nd/Exposition Ave”, but Fair Park is a big place and that’s not really enough information (it’s easy to get lost down there).  It would have been good to have included a detailed map which included parking and pointed out which building the show was in.
• Better signs.  I only saw one sign and it wasn’t very helpful.  I was eventually able to deduce where the show was when I noticed a ticket booth lit up with some people milling around it.
• Perhaps this isn’t really something for the promoters, but clear directions about how to get out of the parking lot would be good.  I ended up having to go the wrong way down a one-way parking area to get back to the entrance, which was the only open entry/exit point.  I suspect that this is a general failing of Fair Park when dealing with small groups, though, since they had big exits (which were marked), but they were closed off.