ANME Winter Expo Archives -

The ANME Winter Expo, a trade show for military surplus retailers and wholesalers, is held in Las Vegas around the time of the SHOT Show. This year it is being held at the Westgate Las Vegas Resort from January 15th through the 17th. It attracts buyers from all over to look at the latest military surplus available as well as camping gear, survival gear, patches, clothing, and other military related items.

As I had arrived in Las Vegas a day early, I used time this morning to attend this trade show. I had attended it in 2019 and knew I’d find some interesting stuff. It has a much “homier” feel to it than the SHOT Show and fits into a large ballroom. The teachers’ conference, Get Your Teach On, held concurrently at the Westgate took up much more room.

In terms of true surplus, you could find all sorts of pouches, packs, clothing, boots, and even demilitarized RPGs. The vendor who had the RPG also had a working full-automatic, NFA-registered, M2 Browning machine gun in .50 BMG. I didn’t bother to ask the price!

There were a lot of morale patches being sold. I know from my times at gun shows, they are a popular item and the producers were here. Here is an example of a few I saw.

One of the first vendors I came across was AceCamp Outdoor Equipment. They had some really interesting items such as a top for a water bottle that dispensed liquid soap and then would squirt the water on your hands. As Mark Drennan, the owner, noted, hand sanitizer doesn’t clean your hand; it only gives you sanitized dirt.

Another product AceCamp had was a LED light to hang in your tent that also incorporated a bug zapper. I thought that was innovative.

I will be following up with AceCamp as they had a number of products that would be useful in prepping or even just when you lose power.

There were some other innovative products on which I’ll be doing posts in the future. That really is the beauty of this expo. You find some really innovative gear mixed in with the trinkets and military surplus. Just as when I found the Simple Shower in 2019 at the expo, this year I found the bug zapper LED light.

Knowing we had some time to kill on Sunday, I wrangled us tickets to the ANME Winter Expo being held in Las Vegas. It is for those in the military surplus business and featured everything from knives to all sorts of surplus gear to camping supplies.

One of the coolest and least expensive things I found was the Simple Shower. It converts a 1 to 2 liter bottle into a handheld shower. Unlike the black shower bags, the temperature of the water never gets too hot. Setting a clear 2 litter bottle of water out in the sun for a couple of hours will raise the temperature to about 102-104 deg. which is plenty warm for a shower.

The kit includes the shower head and two tubes. You attach it to any water bottle, let it sit in the sun for a while, and now you have a warm shower.

The patented Simple Shower weighs less than an ounce and costs about $10. I think designer James Peet has a winner on his hands. You can order it directly from the company at this link.