The Boulder County Fairgrounds hosted a “prepper” event on Saturday. The event was held inside a small exhibit hall which housed ammunition, knives and supplies to survive any disaster.
The space held vendors from around the state, with most coming from just a few miles away. The maze of tables reveals water purifiers, tactical gear, swords and machetes and emergency medical kits. It is a cornucopia of weapons and survival-based goods.
Vendor Ann Fretwell gave a presentation on Berkey filtration systems, now banned by the Environmental Protection Agency. The systems employ silver as a filtration mechanism, which the EPA has classified as a pesticide and harmful to humans and the environment, and placed a stop-sale order on all the products.
The systems are difficult to get. Fretwell sold out of her remaining systems within hours of opening the show.
Steve Nolan was another vendor at the show, selling his handmade knives alongside his wife, Shelley. He said the show is a way to gather people with a variety of interests.
“We see a lot of hunters and survivalists, but a lot of regular people just looking for protection, too,” Steve Nolan said.
The show drew in a larger crowd of women this year, according to Shelley Nolan, more than she has seen in the past. She believes that after the death of Laken Hope Riley — who was murdered while out for a run on the University of Georgia campus — women are looking for nonlethal ways of protecting themselves.
According to Forbes, “preppers site many reasons for their concerns over the future: another global pandemic, coordinated terrorist attacks, natural disasters, cyber-attacks, civil unrest, electro-magnetic pulses (EMPs) and a take-down of the power grid, geo-political conflicts, supply-chain disruptions, and the like.”
The idea that a major disaster is pending is of concern to nearly one-third of the U.S. adult population who identifies as a prepper, according to a recent Finder survey. This population spends nearly $11 billion a year on survivalist gear and supplies, according to Forbes.
“It’s not political. It is people from every walk of life who know that the government and those big, bad companies are trying to get control of things. These shows are a way to inform them and teach them the skills they need,” Fretwell said.
“We’re all here because we believe we have a right to keep ourselves safe from the government,” stated a man in attendance who did not want to be identified.
