Over the weekend, the Arnold Sports Festival Expo returned to Columbus, Ohio, and if you were following, you’ll know we were there to catch anything exciting and posted it straight to stack3d.com. You can see all of those developments in our Arnold Expo section, and while it wasn’t as big as previous ones we’ve attended, it was a strong return to the event.
It’s actually been three years since the Arnold Sports Festival had a significant expo attached after it was canceled in 2020 and didn’t take place in 2021 either, leaving 2019 as the most recent Arnold Expo. This year, as mentioned, the organizers brought back the convention, and it was great to see, with several brands in attendance and great traffic.
The number of supplement companies exhibiting at the 2022 Arnold Sports Festival was substantially lower than we remember back in 2019, although several big names were present. Core Nutritionals, Arms Race Nutrition, Mutant, Barebells, NOCCO, Reign, Celsius, and AllMax Nutrition were some of the more recognizable companies, but again, it definitely felt like there were far fewer.
The booths at the Arnold Expo did cover a lot of the floor space in the Columbus Convention Center; however, the aisles definitely seemed wider, so while it was nice, large, and spacious, there wasn’t as much to see and do. The event still brought in a massive amount of people, creating queues for a few brands and bringing some of the aisles to a crawl.
The 2022 Arnold Sports Festival was not as bustling as those in the past, although considering how much time has gone by without one, it was a great turnout from brands and fans. For those of you that are like us and enjoy the in-person convention, it’s a good start that hopefully gives confidence to other events and leads into an even bigger Arnold Expo in 2023.