Exclusive access before the public arrives and after they leave on Friday, a priority entrance lane, dedicated trade areas with offices and an evening of awards to finish
When we acquired the British Shooting Show in January, we took on more than the UK’s largest shooting showcase. We took on a responsibility to the trade that builds it: the manufacturers, distributors, gunmakers and retailers who turn three days under the NEC’s roof into the single most important shop window in British shooting. For the 2027 edition, we are making a deliberate, considered investment in the UK gun trade and here is the thinking behind it.
The opportunity is growing
Walk the NEC’s halls the second weekend every February and the story tells itself. Exhibitors are investing more in their stands, building better and bringing more of the year’s new product to Birmingham than ever before. The brands that matter choose to deliver their finest showcase at the UK’s largest shooting event because this is where the biggest shooting audience in the country comes to look, handle and buy.
The trade has always done business here. Deals are struck, orders are placed and relationships are renewed across those three days every year. What has changed is the sheer scale of the investment exhibitors are now making – and, with it, the size of the commercial prize on the table. When a manufacturer ships its finest stand and its newest range to Birmingham, the value of that effort reaches well beyond the retail consumer. The same stand, the same product and the same people are exactly what the trade comes to see: the buyers, the accounts, the shop owners and the distributors who decide what reaches the shelves for the rest of the year. The specialists are already in the building, the product is already on display and the business is already being done.
For 2027, we are simply giving the trade more room and more time in which to do it – a dedicated, comfortable and extended window built around the business of shooting.
Why February and why the NEC
The timing is no accident. The British Shooting Show falls at the very start of the year, just as the game season closes – the natural moment for the trade to take stock, plan the year ahead and place the orders that will define it. It does so indoors, under one roof, in the warmth and ease of the NEC, with the motorway network, rail links and Birmingham International Airport on the doorstep. For a trade buyer, there is no more convenient place in the calendar to have a full day of face-to-face conversations with the brands they invest in.
That convenience matters more than it might first appear. The world’s great trade fairs – IWA OutdoorClassics in Nuremberg and the SHOT Show in Las Vegas – are rightly regarded as world-class, and we have nothing but respect for them. But for a UK retailer, attending either represents a significant investment in cost, travel and time away from the shop floor. The reality is that many manufacturers bring the year’s new product to the British Shooting Show before IWA and without pain of Ryanair. That makes Birmingham in February an efficient, low-friction way for the many trade accounts an exhibitor holds to come and have the conversations that matter, without a flight, a hotel bill or several days out of the business.
A global stage and a head start on the year
It is tempting to think of the British Shooting Show as a purely domestic event. Increasingly, it is anything but. In 2026 a number of our exhibitors chose Birmingham to debut global product launches – Perazzi among them – using the show to put new product in front of the world for the first time. For the shooting public, this is frequently the very first opportunity to see, handle and order the year’s most anticipated guns and accessories.
The timing sharpens the point. The British Shooting Show sits in the diary ahead of IWA, which means a great deal of the product that will later be presented in Nuremberg is seen first here, in the UK, in February. For the many manufacturers for whom Britain is a core market, that is no accident: they want their new ranges in front of British buyers and British consumers early. Our job is simply to make it as easy as possible for the trade to engage with those manufacturers and wholesalers – to see the product first, ask the questions and place the orders – all within the comfort of the NEC.
What we are adding
For the 2027 show, Time Well Spent Group is extending real, tangible privileges to the trade, and the most valuable of them is exclusivity. The public day is unchanged – doors open at 9am and close at 4pm – but around it we have built two windows that belong to the trade alone, with no members of the public in the hall. The first is a half-hour of exclusive early access from 8.30am, time to walk the floor, meet brand principals and start the day’s business before the public arrive. The second is a full hour of exclusive late access from 4pm until 5pm, after the public have left, to finish conversations, place orders and talk properly without the crowds.
Combined, that is 90 minutes of public-free trading time. The trade are in the building for eight and a half hours against the public’s seven – a 21.4% increase in access and, far more importantly, every minute of that additional time is the trade’s own. It asks little extra of exhibitors already manning their stands, while handing their buyers a far greater opportunity for the conversations that count.
The experience itself is being upgraded for business visitors too. A priority access lane will expedite queueing and get the trade onto the floor quicker. A dedicated trade area at the heart of the show will be built for business rather than browsing. And private meeting rooms within it will give accounts and brands somewhere to sit down and agree the year ahead in comfort.
Crucially, none of this is compulsory. An exhibitor with no trade accounts to see need not change a thing: they can open at 9am and close at 4pm exactly as before. The extended access is there for those who will use it, the manufacturers, wholesalers and distributors who could do with more time for the discussions that matter, rather than squeezing them into a busy public day.
And because the public are not in the halls during those windows, the value of that time is greater still. For a trade visitor who has travelled a long way to be there, 90 minutes of uninterrupted, crowd-free access is worth far more than the same minutes spent threading through a packed floor of end users. The headline figure is 21.4% more time – in practice, the gain in productive, business-quality time is greater than that.
FRIDAY AT A GLANCE
Public hours: 9am – 4pm. Trade access: 8.30am – 5pm.
90 minutes of exclusive, public-free trade time – a private half-hour before opening and a full hour after the public leave – plus a priority access lane, a dedicated trade area and private meeting rooms.
Optional for exhibitors: keep to 9am – 4pm if you prefer, or use the extra time for key trade discussions.
21.4% more time in the hall for the trade than the public – and every extra minute is public-free.
With no public in the halls during those windows, the practical value is greater still.
The day doesn’t end at five
There is one more reason for the trade to make a full day of the Friday. As the doors close at five, the hall rolls straight into the Great British Shooting Awards: a trade-only evening, staged in the hall immediately after the show closes, with food and refreshments laid on and the night hosted by Gun Trade Insider and Time Well Spent Group. It is the natural close to the industry’s business day – a chance to stay on, network in a relaxed setting and celebrate the brands, products and people driving the sector forward. For the trade, Friday now offers exclusive access at both ends of the day and an evening of recognition to finish, all under one roof with no need to go anywhere else.
FRIDAY NIGHT: THE GREAT BRITISH SHOOTING AWARDS
A trade-only evening from 5pm, held in the hall straight after the show closes, with food and refreshments. Hosted by Gun Trade Insider and Time Well Spent Group, celebrating the brands, products and people of British shooting.
For the exhibitor, without taking anything from the public
None of this is a diversion from the show’s first duty, which is to deliver brilliantly for the public. The consumer experience remains the heart of the event, and it is not being diluted by a single minute. What these enhancements do is acknowledge the very real investment exhibitors make to be here – the stands, the staff, the product – and help them optimise every commercial opportunity that investment creates.
That matters most of all for the exhibitors who are not retailing at the show. For them, the value lies not in over-the-counter sales but in the order book: the exclusive hours, the dedicated trade area and the private meeting rooms are precisely where a manufacturer or wholesaler can sit down with their accounts and take orders for the year ahead. It is one more reason the British Shooting Show is becoming not only the largest consumer showcase in UK shooting, but one of the most important business dates in the UK industry’s calendar.
What it means for the UK shooting sector
This is an investment in the health of the domestic trade, not just in one event. For retailers, it is a day where the year’s new product, the brands and the distributors are all gathered in one warm, central hall at the start of the season – the most cost-effective buying trip in the calendar. For distributors and manufacturers, it is concentrated, high-quality access to the trade accounts they need to reach, with extended time to have those conversations properly. And for the sector as a whole, it keeps more of the trade’s annual business happening here, in Britain, supporting British retailers and the wider supply chain.
The British Shooting Show has always been the place where the UK shooting world comes together. For 2027, we are making sure the trade has the time, the space and the comfort to make the most of it.
