By Barclay Kruse, NSC Chief Communications Officer
Last spring, the National Sports Center partnered with the Tom Helgeson family and took over the hosting and production of the Tom Helgeson's Great Waters Fly Fishing Expo. We've hosted outdoor shows on our campus before, but they were rental events, owned and produced by outside producers. The fly fishing expo was our first experience at producing our own show -- selling the booth space, coordinating the educational seminars and promoting ticket sales.
If you attended that show, you know it was a great success. The booth space sold out, the Schwan Center was packed with attendees, and the weather was balmy enough that we even did some fly casting training outdoors on our stadium field.
Below: Fly casting instruction outdoors at the 2011 Great Waters Fly Fishing Expo:
On the heels of the success of the Fly Fishing Expo, we assigned Greg Savino, our Campus Development Manager, to develop a full calendar of outdoor shows. We're jumping into the business with two shows in 2012 -- the Great Water Fly Fishing Expo will return on March 23-25, and the new Minnesota Bass Expo will premier on April 20-22, in the indoor Sports Hall.
Below:Very soon you'll be able to pick up a discount coupon for the Fly Fishing Expo and the Bass Expo at metro area Subway stores.
The Great Waters Fly Fishing show has sold out its booth space already, and the Bass Expo should fill up soon. In 2013, both these shows will move into the new Sport Expo Center that is currently under constructionn and projected to open in early June.
In the meantime, you can follow our growing menu of outdoor shows at the NSC by checking in on the outdoor expo page on the NSC website.
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