They started out as gatherings of like minded people to get to know each other, share stories, experiences, see each other's builds, make friends, etc. Then it evolved into education, classes, demos.
Contrast much of the US with how lucky we are in Denver and with Rising Sun. We have our community of experts, we learn from each other. We do this at meetings, on trail and in our well established forum. Mant who do what we do are isolated.
Then OE grew to be more vendor-oriented - the attendance is amazing - and demos or gear and education gave way to retail. That continues to grow.
More recently Business-to-Business has taken off. B2B is now a major component.
There are still great opportunities to meet people who share the passion for vehicle-based-adventures, but many more attend to learn and are not bringing the knowledge. Many camp onsite still but many more stay in local accommodations and come by day (I highly recommend to camp for best access and experience).
In the end, you have to dig below the consumerism to find the best experience. For classes you have to sign up for a "experience" ticket (or similar), and the classes and war-stores are typically amazing. The driving classes are typically basic and we do 10x more learning on any typical Rising Sun Club run. The meeting of other attendees and seeing other 4x4 builds is only limited to how extroverted you are. The ability to see amazing tech and new gear is unlimited, as is the ability to show up with wads of cash and go home with all the gear you could ever hope for, much sold by the people who actually build it. You will still meet optimistic inventors with neat ideas that will probably not be commercially successful and sadly probably not back next year - but I always pull for the underdog. Some companies get discovered and luanched by OE. Want to go see nearly every off-road trailer builder and compare models in one spot - Expo does it.
Last year we (me, Anna, Perry and the dog - and I recommend you leave your dog home unless it really loves people and activity all day long possibly in hot or cold weather) drove the Subaru to save gas money and because the Land Cruiser is not really needed. We camped next to quiet people with whom we did not interact much except one guy had his homemade trailer and it was fun to discuss his build - but he was clearly intimidated by all the high dollar build and I think felt a little out of place. All I cared was that he built his himself but was too shy to really share about it. To learn about it was like pulling teeth. Maybe I was shunned because I was in a Subaru with a Coleman tent. (I'd have been more overlandy with the Cruiser and Oz tent. Walking around the camp was great fun - especially when I met some insane Subaru overlanders, a dedicated bunch! Many conversations resulted. In the vendor areas and classes I had an advantage and disadvantage. As a member of the media I had unlimited access. I also was addressed by many as a member of the media until I was able to give my spiel and get acquainted. I also alreadu know many vendors, so much was seeing the new toys of old friends.
A decent idea to bring your bicycle to get around with.
This will be the first year under new ownership and I am very interested to hear what difference it makes.
