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The Complementary Spouse and I attended the 2023 Safari Club International Convention in Nashville held from February 22nd through 25th. It was held at the Music City Center in downtown Nashville. This is where the NRA was supposed to have their 2020 Annual Meeting until the pandemic interfered.
There were 835 exhibitors with 140 countries represented. From what I understand, they had to turn down some exhibitors as there just was not enough room for everyone who wanted to be an exhibitor. Having attended the convention last year at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center, I didn’t realize there was that much difference in size. However, checking the available exhibition space for both venues, Mandalay Bay is about 2.5 times as large as the Music City Center.
The Complementary Spouse reminded me that the aisles were wider in Las Vegas and that there were more open spaces in the Mandalay Bay exhibit hall. I do remember it being much harder to find the rooms in which the seminars were being held as they were on a different floor in another section of the facility.
Regardless of which venue had more exhibit space, it was my impression that they had better attendance in Nashville over the four days than they did in Las Vegas. It was the first time that SCI had come East for a convention. As Jim Shepherd noted in his report on the convention, you go to where the people are. There are millions of hunters and anglers within a four hour drive of Nashville. For us, it was a five hour drive which was fine. Not having to fly to Las Vegas and deal with that city made this year a pleasure.
We did talk to quite a number of safari outfitters. My goal is to hunt somewhere in southern Africa in 2024. I spoke to outfitters from both South Africa and Namibia as well as catching up with a safari outfitter from Zambia that I met last year. I had hoped to make the trip this year but honestly felt I just was not in the physical shape that I’d like to be.
One of the biggest differences I saw between last year in Las Vegas and this year in Nashville were the number of families who attended. Other than not having groups of school kids, it felt much more like the Dallas Safari Club Convention I attended in 2022. What I mean by that is that kids were welcome, families were numerous, and younger people were everwhere. I know there is a difference in admission fees between SCI and DSC but this year you wouldn’t have known it.
The convention is the major annual fundraiser for SCI. Beyond the money raised through ticket sales and memberships are the funds derived from live and silent auctions held every day of the convention. While I don’t have the figures from the silent auctions, the day and night live auctions raised approximately $4.4 million by my estimate. The range of winning bids for trips and goods ranged from $500 at one end to $675,000 for a set of five custom rifles called the African Lion Rifle Collection. These were made by gunmaker John Bollinger on sequentially serial-numbered Winchester Model 70 actions with Turkish walnut stocks which all came from one 300-year old tree. It took five years to complete the project.
We did not attend any of the evening events such as the concerts by stars such as Lynyrd Skynyrd, Gretchen Wilson, Big & Rich, and Lee Brice. From what I understand, they all sold out or close to it. These, too, helped raise money for wildlife conservation and protecting hunting.
I did attend two of the 41 seminars held from Tuesday through Saturday. I will have separate posts up on those two. However, the seminars ranged from everything from African hunting to the impact of drug cartels on US wildlands.
The convention and evening events attracted and honored a number of legislators, diplomats, and foreign officials. Beyond the US politicians, you had Eduardo Bolsonaro, a Brazilian legislator and son of the former president, who was honored at International Legislator of the Year.
We were also joined by honorable dignitaries from Namibia, Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe and extend a special thank you to H.M. Rodney Sikumba, the Honorable Minister of Zambia’s Ministry of Tourism and H.E. Elsie Sia Kanza, the Tanzanian Ambassador to the U.S. for her attendance.
Events like this often attract demonstrators from anti-hunting groups who wish to impose their neo-colonialist beliefs on African and other countries. Surprisingly, the only thing we saw was a roadside billboard objecting to bear hunting. It is my understanding that the Humane Society of the US which is virulently anti-hunting had an “undercover investigator” sneak in. I will have a separate post of it.
The convention hotels in downtown Nashville were all very nice, convenient to the facility, and, dare I say it, expensive. We took an alternate route. We stayed at a Comfort Inn in Brentwood which includes breakfast and free WiFi. Even better was the road we took into downtown Nashville, US 31 aka Franklin Rd and 8th Ave, went directly to one side of the Music City Center which had plenty of parking for a set fee of $20. It was a 15-20 minute drive with no traffic jams. It might not work for you but it was great for us.
The SCI Convention will be in Nashville for the next two years and then switch to New Orleans for a year. The dates for the 2024 event are January 31st through February 3rd. If you can make it even for a day, it is worth it.
(I had planned to have this up much earlier and apologize for the delay. Some things had to be attended to when we got home and then my natural procrastination kicked in.)
