Before the Arnold Sports Festival took place, it proved that it was going to be the biggest health and fitness convention in the world with the numbers and positions the company was confirming. The organizers confirmed it had sold more floor space than ever before at the convention, and online tickets for Saturday completely sold out. The Arnold Expo was expected to have well over 130,000 visitors, and it exceeded that tremendously.
Some incredibly interesting facts shared by the Arnold Sports Festival are that if you take the numbers from Friday, Saturday, and Sunday separately, and treat them as standalone shows, they would be the three biggest in the industry in the Western Hemisphere. Another intriguing statistic is that if you take just the unique attendance of Saturday and split it right down the middle, you’d also be looking at more visitors than any other show.
In terms of exhibitors and brands on the floor, something we ourselves enjoy, appreciate, and feel makes the show such an experience; it was something not to be missed. Everyone from big to small was there, spreading their name, including Barebells, Ghost, C4 Energy, Myprotein, Celsius, Reign, Gains In Bulk, Bucked Up, MuscleTech, AllMax, Core Nutritionals, and Quest Nutrition. Emerging names were making their mark too, like Pump Sauce, Nemesis, Yumtein, the creatine protein bar innovators Soar, and the protein specialist Orion.
It was easily the busiest show we’d ever been to, considering the size of the Columbus Convention Center, and more brands in our industry of supplements, energy drinks, and functional foods, that had us going through every aisle one by one. The Arnold Sports Festival and the Arnold Expo were the promised increase from last year and then some, and we can assure you that next year is going to go above and beyond again from every angle.
