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From Rick Chard, Paintbal
attendees 774 hours of business training and 1,476 hours of technical training. Many great product deals were
offered in conjunction with the technical training resulting in over $200,000
reimbursed back to manufacturers for
products provided to class attendees.
What does the 2005 Paintball Extravaganza, which was held in Springfield,
Illinois and the 2015 event held in the
Washington DC Area have in common? Unusual winter weather and
record low temperatures! I have been
told the temperatures we experienced
at this year’s event was the lowest
the DC Area had seen in 119 years. I
look at this as being the negative for
the event. Now on to the positive of
the paintball industry’s only wholesale
tradeshow and largest dealer summit.
Over 450 attendees from around the
world enjoyed 65 exhibitors from 8
countries occupying 20,000 square feet
of space at the Hyatt Dulles. Owners
and employees represented 21 countries including 36 US States. Training
at the event saw 49 sessions providing
2015 PBX Special
Contests continued at the close of the
event with the flowing winners: Voodoo Paintball of Canada won a GI
Sportz VForce Grille Vision System for
having the closest guess to the number of paintballs in the jug that was
on display for the week outside the GI
Sportz/Tippmann exhibit space. All
businesses that are at the event at the
close on Thursday were eligible to win
a 5 Man Deluxe bunker system donated
by Airups which was won by Bearclaw
Paintball out of Tennessee. By visiting all exhibitor booths and providing
the verification sheet upon completion,
one business was in line to win a prize
package comprised of products donated by various exhibitors. This years
package had a value of over $2,000
and included among other items Planet Eclipse Gear Bag, DYE R2 Loader,
Pinokio Loader, Custom Valken Shield
and a TCR Mag Fed marker from GI
Sportz/Tippmann. The winning business of this package was NO Name
Paintball from Texas.
Discussion has surfaced over the last
few years at the absence of an industry
meeting that has been missing since
the International Amatuer Open. Just a
couple of weeks before the event it was
decided to host the first Paintball Extravaganza State of the Industry Luncheon. Due to the late addition of the
luncheon, space was very limited and
attendance was limited to one representative per business. With the suc-