English
The first Shot World trade fair took place in Troisdorf, near Cologne, on the first weekend in December last year. We were there for you to have a look around, talk to the organizers and exhibitors and, of course, bring you an interesting report and great pictures. We can already tell you in advance that, in our opinion, Shot World was definitely worth a visit and that you could see, touch and even buy lots of products related to shooting sports on site.
When it comes to the topic of paintball trade fairs, most people probably have the X-Days in mind. However, these have been a thing of the past since last season and should be replaced by a new concept. After things had been pretty quiet on the subject for a long time over the year, the successor event, the so-called Shot World, was presented for the first time in October 2024. While the X-Days were still a pure paintball trade fair at the time, the Shot World was announced from day one as a trade fair for recreational shooting sports in the area of free weapons. The topic should no longer just be paintball, but also airsoft, gel blasters, crossbow shooting and everything else that is available on the market. As Shot World organizer Lars Herzig told us so beautifully in advance: "The Shot World is home to everyone who likes to shoot at each other for fun." So we headed towards Troisdorf near Cologne on Friday evening, one day before the trade fair started. When we arrived there, we met the first familiar faces from the paintball scene over dinner in a restaurant near our hotel and knew straight away that we were in the right place. On Saturday, the day started early for us and so, just before nine, we were standing with almost 100 other shooting fans in front of the entrance to the Troisdorf town hall, which opened its doors shortly afterwards. Anyone who knew the X-Days as the previous event in the tranquil Waldems was speechless when they entered the new location. The foyer of the Troisdorf town hall alone was almost as big as the entire event area of the small multi-purpose hall that we knew from the previous year. First impression? – Definitely a success! After we had greeted the first familiar faces, we went inside the hall. There were a total of 34 stands from various exhibitors.
The paintball brands represented included HK Army, First Strike, Virtue, Bunkerkings, Tomahawk, SP, DLX Luxe and a few others. Since Shot World is a consumer trade fair, visitors were able to touch all of the products on display, get advice in peace and quiet and, if they wanted, buy the products directly and take them home with them. Many stands even had interesting trade fair offers and bargains to be had. The topic of new products is of course also a must at a trade fair like this, just before Christmas. At DLX, we were presented with new model variants of the Luxe IDOL, First Strike had a prototype of the brand new XP pistol on its stand, which will replace the tried and tested FSC from next season, and the HK Army stand also had numerous new products on display. These included new air systems and a few tried and tested products in fresh color combinations.
But that was not all, because, as mentioned at the beginning, Shot World is not just a paintball trade fair. The wide central aisle of the exhibition hall was lined with large sales stands from airsoft dealers and brands. The newly founded VDP (Association of German Paintballers) and the VDB (Association of German Gunsmiths) were also there to provide information and recruit new members.
The exhibition was rounded off with a wide-ranging supporting programme. Panel discussions took place almost all day long on the large main stage of the hall. Many current topics and events from both the paintball and airsoft scene were discussed there. Under the moderation of Christoph Leichsenring, alias “The Bravehard”, a new topic was discussed every hour on the hour with a handful of experienced big names in the scene in a kind of panel discussion. Anyone who was interested could take a seat on the stage in the audience area, listen to everything carefully and
also ask questions.
Refreshments were provided in the form of currywurst fries, sandwiches and soft drinks. The selection could certainly be improved and expanded a little, but no one went hungry. After two exciting days of the trade fair, the first Shot World closed its doors on Sunday evening, December 8th, 2024. The organizers were quite satisfied and the number of visitors even exceeded expectations. So you can say that Shot World was an all-round success, which in all respects definitely represents a significant improvement on the previous event, X-Days. When asked, organizer Lars Herzig told us that they had already recognized a lot of areas for improvement during the setup and on the first day of the trade fair and that they would like to implement these things in the following year so that Shot World 2025 will be even better, even bigger and simply even better. There were even rumors about additional outdoor areas that the city of Troisdorf has already released for a playing area, where paintball and airsoft sports could then be presented to the interested public in real life.
We were definitely positively surprised by our visit to Shot World and will visit again next year to see what changes there are and how this unique event is changing and growing. With that, we say goodbye to Shot World 2024 and say "see you next time". If you would like to have more impressions of Shot World, then please take a look at our YouTube channel. We have put together a two-part video series about the trade fair, in which we present Shot World in general and in the second part we conducted detailed interviews with many of the exhibitors and the organizers. We hope you enjoy watching.
