Paintball Magazine 2018 Paintball Extravaganza Special Edition | Page 16

2018 Paintball Extravaganza International By John Amodea, Photos By Aaron Dill For 13 years the Paintball Extravaganza International has been the world’s largest paintball industry-only, wholesale-only trade show. What started out as a modest show with 18 exhibitors and 36 fields and stores in attendance in 2005, grew into an event that has seen 70-plus exhibitors and 200-plus paintball fields and stores participating. Many retailers and store owners come for the tech training classes; others come to set up their buying options for the coming season; some come for the networking opportunity; some for the roundtable talks and industry luncheon; some come to see the new products; and some come for all of these reasons combined. Some History The Paintball Extravaganza’s history can be traced back to the early 2000s when Rick Chard, now the event’s producer, purchased a sporting goods store. Having no previous experience or exposure to paintball, Rick went to a national sporting goods show in Chicago to learn about paintball. After further searching he discovered there was no such event for the paintball industry. 016 paintball.media magazine