The Army Navy Military Expo (ANME) is set for just outside of Chicago at the Odeum Expo Center in Villa Park, IL, July 23-24. Buyers are admitted free of charge and it is a good opportunity for everyone with an Employer I.D. Number (EIN) to meet suppliers and explore opportunities in this business, David Castlegrant, president of ANME Inc., stresses. “There is a lot of room for the surplus industry to grow, so we’re inviting members of the general public who may be looking to get into this business, to see if an Army Navy Surplus store is in their future.”
The ANME, heavily laden with Army surplus gear, will also showcase emergency preparedness, knives, law enforcement and tactical equipment, camping and outdoor goods, tools and more, as well as highlight trends and regional favorites. “A lot of the Army Navy stores are experiencing an uptick in sales of doomsday preparedness things,” Castlegrant notes. “This trend centers on products like freeze-dried foods and airtight storage boxes. We expect buyers at the Chicago show also to be heavily interested in Halloween items and cold weather gear, as many of the registered attendees are from the upper Midwest and the Great Lakes region.”
ANME was created by a group of investors, both wholesalers and retailers, who have ties to the Army/Navy industry, which consists of 1,500 distributors and retailers and the suppliers that support them. The Expo launched in 2007 as a bi-annual event in Las Vegas, but the summer show was suspended a few years ago, Castlegrant explains. The winter shows gained momentum, however, “and after the success of the 2011 winter show, we got requests from exhibitors and buyers to see if we’d consider doing a summer show again. We did some research and surveyed exhibitors and buyers and it appeared that Chicago was a place people would like to go, as long as the show was in an intimate setting.”
“One of the things buyers and exhibitors say they like is that the ANME is an order writing show, as well as a place to get ideas and make contacts,” Castlegrant continues. The Odeum has space for 95 booths, and Castlegrant says he expects around 50 exhibitors and 400 to 500 buyers to attend. “We encourage our exhibitors to offer great deals at the show, because it creates excitement,” he adds. “We want them to sharpen their pencils and offer good deals and value, so the buyers will come.”
“This past January, we had the largest show since we started at the Tuscany Hotel in Las Vegas, with about 175 booths representing 130 exhibitors, and 2,500 to 2,600 unique buyers attending,” Castlegrant points out. “The January show had the biggest display of authentic military surplus under one roof, anywhere in the country.” The winter Army Navy Military Expo is scheduled January 13-16, 2013, in Las Vegas.
For more information:
Army Navy Military Expo (ANME)
PO Box 385
Whitmore Lake, MI 48189-0385
Toll Free: 800-880-2485
Tel.: 810-225-9801
Website: www.anmexpo.com