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There are lots of opinions out there about the future of industry trade shows. Here’s one more, hopefully not the one that makes it one opinion too many.

Let’s assume that the three players here are the Army Navy Military Expo (ANM Expo); The SHOT Show (SHOT); and the ASD Military Tactical Outdoor Show (ASD/MTO), available in two flavors, Winter and Summer.

The ANM Expo seems to have finally found its happy place, in orbit around The SHOT Show. For 2011, they are adding an extra day and tweaking the dates of their SHOT overlap. By taking these steps, they hope to attract more buyers from SHOT to Expo, while providing exhibitors with cost-savings and more exposure to army/navy buyers.

But what happens when SHOT moves from Las Vegas, either temporarily or, as has been rumored, permanently? Does the Expo follow the Sun? If everybody stays put, the Expo should evolve into the pre-eminent industry-specific show that was its original objective.

The SHOT Show - becoming a must-attend for buyers and exhibitors, and for good reason. The plethora of hunting, camping, cutlery, and law enforcement products represent the past, present and most importantly the future of the army/navy market. The challenge for exhibitors is developing the follow-up skills necessary to turn leads into sales. SHOT is not an order-writing show and exhibiting firms that cannot convert prospects into customers will find that their investment in the show is not justified.

Then there’s the trade show emeritus, the ASD/MTO Show.

With the emerging allure of the now once-yearly ANM Expo, which occurs only about six weeks in front of ASD/MTO, it is not unthinkable that the Summer show, traditionally the less loved of the two ASD/MTO shows within our industry, may become the stronger of the two ASD/MTO shows.

We will devote next month’s column exclusively to the ASD/MTO show, provide our rationale for that previous sentence, and say mostly nice things about the show.