Show Report

Attendance at Golf Expo increases slightly from 2020, but numbers in first year at Colorado Convention Center relatively low by historical standards

By Gary Baines – 2/28/2022

New name, new location, slightly higher attendance.

The Colorado Golf Expo wrapped up its three-day show on Sunday at the Colorado Convention Center, marking its first in-person event in two years. And Mark and Lynn Cramer, who have owned and operated the Expo for the entire 21st century, reported on Monday that it drew a bit higher attendance than it did in 2020, its final year at the Denver Mart.

Business was brisk at times during the show over the weekend.

Lynn Cramer said in an email that the Expo had a total attendance of 7,928. That’s 122 more than two years ago, though it also was the third-lowest attendance figure since at least 2008, with only 2015 (7,195) and 2020 (7,806) being lower during that period.

The all-time attendance high for the show came in 2008, when 11,202 showed up. The Expo hasn’t surpassed 10,000 attendees since 2012.

The CGA booth was one of many at the show.

The Cramers said that 93 exhibitors were on hand for the 2022 show, which was more than 20 fewer than two years ago.

“We were pleased with the numbers” overall, Mark Cramer said in an email. “We did much better than I thought we would do. I knew the attendance and the exhibit would be down with the move and the pandemic. Regarding the former, that’s why you have to think hard about changing venues. Each venue develops a following demographic. It will take a few years to get the number back up there but the CCC has the potential of being better than the Mart in the very near future. Also on the venue, the exhibitors I spoke with said they liked the new facility a lot better.

“Exhibitors did really, really well. Many want to double and quadruple space for next year. We’ll see on that.”

This year’s event — which changed its name to the Colorado Golf Expo from the Denver Golf Expo, and its site to the Colorado Convention Center from the Denver Mart, which closed in 2021 — faced one hurdle this year it hadn’t before. While parking at the Denver Mart was always free, that wasn’t the case for the most part at the Colorado Convention Center and surrounding — at least not on Friday and Saturday.

But hurdles or not, many attendees were happy to return to an in-person show this year after the Covid-19 pandemic led to last year’s Expo being held online only, as it was billed at the Denver Golf CyberExpo. This year’s Expo had its usual emphasis on golf deals, contests, educational seminars, club tryouts and dissemination of information.

Broken down by day, the 2022 Colorado Golf Expo attracted 2,152 people on Friday, 3,591 on Saturday and 2,185 on Sunday.

Contests are always a fixture at the Expo.

(About the writer: Gary Baines has covered golf in Colorado continuously since 1983. He was a sports writer at the Daily Camera newspaper in Boulder, then the sports editor there, and has written regularly for ColoradoGolf.org since 2009. He was voted into the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame in 2021. Email: ColoradoGolfJournal@mac.com)