World Gunmakers Evening Goes Digital

The World Gunmakers Evening is usually an annual event held in London by GunsOnPegs, however, with Covid-19 putting a temporary stop to all gatherings like this GunsOnPegs have taken the initiative to turn this year into a virtual event.

GunsOnPegs is the UK’s most popular platform for buying and selling shooting. It was started in 2007 when James Horne needed to sell some days on the shoot he was involved in running in Cambridgeshire. James asked himself, ‘what would I want’? A website that is free to buy and sell shooting on, a community with no barriers to entry and access to a huge market, no matter how large my shoot is or how small my budget. Today, GunsOnPegs has over 100,000 members with over 1,200 shoots listed, advertising many full days and also single pegs either a year in advance or at the last minute as well as many more opportunities through syndicates and classifieds.

The World Gunmakers Evening was started 8 years ago. It is a unique event set in a five-star hotel in London that celebrates the world’s best gunmakers over the course of one evening. In previous years event numbers have been limited to 400 people which gave the guests an opportunity to talk with the experts from various brands and handle fine guns which would usually be locked in glass cabinets. It also gave the brands’ representatives the chance to get valuable feedback from customers.

The Event

This year, however, the event has gone digital. In an attempt to prevent Covid-19 from ruining this long running event it is being brought to you through the medium of video.

Each brand has made a short video for the World Gunmakers Virtual Event. There have been a number of products launched in 2020 that companies have been unable to properly show off and these videos will allow them the chance to place them in front of shooting enthusiasts. It won’t just be guns and rifles showcased at this event. Other shooting and countryside brands will also be showing off their products and services.

A specially created platform will host the videos until the 2021 event takes place. Whilst there is the downside of not being able to handle the guns and accessories like you would have been able to at the physical event, the upside is that “entry” to the platform is free and there are no limited ticket sales which will enable a far greater number of people to see the best that the shooting world has to offer.

Chris Horne, Managing Director of GunsOnPegs said

The World Gunmakers Evening is a highlight of our year, just as we know that it is for many who attend, so we were determined to hold an event of some kind this year. As a digital company the logical thing seemed to be to take the event into a virtual setting. It won’t quite be the same experience, but we are excited that now that we are unconstrained by the size of the venue, we can open the event out to far more people, and that more brands can showcase their amazing products.