I am making my first trip to the SCI in Reno. What should I focus on and do as well as what should I avoid. I am taking the wife so spending four days at the convention is out. I plan to spend 2 days at the convention and the other 3 days doing other stuff.

crl

Explore Lake Tahoe

Ski

Treat her to a nice dinner and a show

See you there!

Depends what your interest is.
Once you start talking to someone the time wizzes away and two days seems like nothing.But its reasonably enough if you target your interests and manage your time.
Its also good to go up the road and see the ACGG & knifeshow(if your into high end gear)
I needed to go to both SCI & ACGG cause I needed to compare/research the work of the British(H&H, PURDEY), German(Hartmann Weiss) bestgrade gun makers and the work of the more individual makers(Echoles, Miller, Fisher,Heilmann,Martini/Hagn ,GraniteMausers etc). I am glad I did.
If your into,
Magnum Mausers: you must see Hartmann Weiss and Granite Mountain, Hagn will probably have H&W on show aswell.

Synthetic/Lightweight rifles: see RiflesInc. and Bansner.

Custom Rifles: plenty good stuff, but do make a special effort not to miss the Martini/Hagn table at ACGG.

I used the SCI map and ploted the stalls I needed to purposefully visit and did them,followed by a scan of the whole show,row by row.
The EldoradoCasino at the centre of town (alittle bit away from SCI), has a great buffe meal service and cheap$ and it is also close to the Silver Legacy which holds the ACGG in its rooms. The knives are in very close proximity as well.
ACCOMMODATION:
I personally dont previously book accommodation cause I go on my own. I found no problems getting rooms around town. But I am not reccomending you to do that. I stayed at the Atlantis Casino which is conveniently just across the road from the SCI convention, and well priced except for Fri/Sat when the priced tripled!($125)other nights it was down to $25. MOTEL 6 was good for fri/sat ,nothing over $45, and located between SCI and ACGG on the main drag. I walk alot as rule to keep my fittness up, so didnt mind. The shows dont open early, so theres no hurry.
DO ENJOY!

Go check out the national automobile museum http://www.automuseum.org/ This is whats left of the Harrahs collection. It's worth the visit if you like classic cars.

Whats ACGG?

American Custom Gunmakers Guild. Truly fabulous custom rifles.

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I would not limit the time your wife may want to spend at the Convention. There are many high $$ jewelry, clothing, accessories, and home furnishing vendors.

Away from the convention Lake Tahoe is certainly worth the trip. I would also consider a show at one of the bigger hotels.

Walk and then walk somemore.

Make dinner reservations at the Chop House on Virginia.Have drinks at the martini bar by the Eldorado.Check out all the local collage girls friday and saturday night at most any bar.Have the prime rib at the coffee shop by the Circus Circus.

Avoid the steak house and seafood resturants at the Silver Legacy.Aviod the sushi bar between the Legacy and Circus.

Go shoot machineguns in the desert.

Don't have too much fun and drop a wad on a hunt you've really done no research on. Gather your info. from several people and make a sober decision later. The other alternative if you are really considering booking something is to do your research now and then at the convention fine tune your hunt with the outfitter. There is no substitute for a face to face.

Mark

Don't take credit cards!

really, hit ACGG, it is well worth it for the show you will get, they do it with FEGA, so you get tons of engraved things that the people have gone all out on. (make sure you stop at Connecticut Shotguns booth at SCI if you want to see good engraving).

If you have money and want some fun see if you can join and attend or otherwise get your way into the ACGG dinner which includes an auction that you can really get some good things at.

Red

You know, it would be nice if we had some way of identifying AR members at the SCI convention, like a little sticker of some sort to put on our name tags, etc. Any ideas, anyone? Or I should say, anything that we could do that would not invoke the ire of SCI, but would allow us to stop and talk to other AR members should we run into them during the convention?

U E G,

Good idea! CCHunter has been emailing AR logos with your user name on them, I'm going to put mine in a plastic holder and pin it on my SCI badge holder. If the holder is like last years, there's plenty of space on it, won't interfer with the SCI badge.

Do go to an auction or two... I found that to be a lot of fun and I actually bought a hunt... but I had done my research first so I knew what it was worth and had some background on the outfitter etc.

I found it fun just to observe.... and a good place to rest my tired dogs.

I will be wearing my AR ball cap and it has my handle on the back.

Make sure you wear dark/reflective glasses so your wife won't catch you checking out all the gorgeous babes

Thanks for the good ideas. I will be wearing shades. But at my age and being married so she knows how I love to look. I look forward to seeing some AR badges. I will have mine on.

crl