Chris Holloway has always thrown parties, listen to the progression in Episode 286

In this episode, Rich sits down with Chris Holloway, the founder of the Midwest Overland & Off-Road Expo (MOORE) in Springfield, Missouri. Chris shares his unlikely path from ice cream truck entrepreneur and diesel tech to building one of the Midwest’s premier overland and off-road trade shows. 

Highlights - From Massachusetts to Missouri: family, music roots, and early hustle - The “40 Licks” ice cream truck, party wagons, and learning business young - Tech school turnaround: graduating top of his class in diesel electronics - Grease to growth: from shop broom to youngest service manager running a dealership - First rigs, JK life, and discovering community through wheeling and camping - Throwing trail events, fundraising, and the mentor who sparked MOORE Expo - Launching MOORE: 50 vendors, 2,000 attendees, then doubling during COVID - Vendor retention, event fatigue, and why brands cycle regions - Expanding into PowerSports and the “dot…dot…dot” of overlanding (hiking, hunting, bikes, kayaks, shooting sports) - What’s next: big reinvestments and a major reimagining post-2026 

Event + Contact - MOORE Expo: April 17–18, 2026 — Springfield, MO - Info/Vendors: mooreexpo.com (contact form goes to Chris) - Email: chris@mooreexpo.com 

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

[00:00:05.100] - 

Welcome to Conversations with Big Rich. This is an interview-style podcast. Those interviewed are all involved in the off-road industry. Being involved, like all of my guests are, is a lifestyle, not just a job. I talk to past, present, and future legends, as well as business owners, employees, media, and land use warriors, men and women who have found their way into this exciting and addictive lifestyle we call off-road. We discuss their personal history, struggles, successes, and reboots. We dive into what drives them to stay active and off-road. We all hope to shed some light on how to find a path into this world that we live and love and call off-road.

[00:00:46.400] - 

Whether you're crawling the Red Rocks of Moab or hauling your toys to the trail, Maxxis has the tires you can trust for performance and durability. Four wheels or two, Maxxis tires are the choice of champions because they know that whether for work or play, for fun or competition, Maxxis tires deliver. Choose Maxxis. Tread victoriously.

[00:01:12.280] - Rich Klein

On today's episode of Conversation with Big Rich is Chris Holloway. Chris Holloway is the founder and CEO of the Midwest Overland and Off-Road Expo, called More. And let's see, was it Springfield, Missouri, where I came in I visited you guys this year earlier?

[00:01:32.600] - Chris Holloway

Yep, that's right. Springfield, Missouri.

[00:01:34.960] - Rich Klein

Great. So Chris, thank you for coming on and being a guest on the podcast, and I'm looking forward to this.

[00:01:43.320] - Chris Holloway

Rich, I greatly appreciate it. Always have looked up to you and the circles that you keep yourself surrounded with, and I am just happy to be a small part of that. So it was a pleasure to have you in Springfield at More Expo, and And I'm thrilled just to be able to catch up a little bit. Yeah.

[00:02:03.600] - Rich Klein

So let's jump in and start with the question I ask everybody, where were you born and raised?

[00:02:12.260] - Chris Holloway

I was born and raised in where Well, let's see. I was born in Ware, Massachusetts. And I spent the first 10 years of my life in Massachusetts. Then in 1997, we moved out to Warsaw, Missouri, which is where... That's where I would say I really grew up. We moved out to the country and got to play with all the fun toys and do all the fun things out there. So I spent the rest of my childhood life in Warsaw, Lake of the Ozards.

[00:02:51.640] - Rich Klein

So, Ward, if you were there for 10 years, your first 10 years, you were about what, fourth or fifth grade, something like that?

[00:03:00.000] - Chris Holloway

Yeah, I think it was, I think it was fourth grade when we moved to Missouri. Yeah.

[00:03:06.400] - Rich Klein

And was it the change of locale due to parents chasing a job?

[00:03:16.940] - Chris Holloway

So let's see. My father was stationed out here when he was in Vietnam, so late '60s. He was stationed at Fort Leonardwood and had absolutely just fallen in love with the area. Originally from Connecticut, Massachusetts, he was pretty well-vested out there, but I think when he retired, he was just looking for a change of pace. There's a lot of cultural differences between New England and central Missouri. Oh, yeah. He wanted to chase the Ozars Our first house out here was a Lake house. He wanted to do the the Lake thing with a boat, which did not work out. That only lasted like two years. Then sold the house on the Lake and bought a house on a farm. Okay. Or a couple of acres, anyways.

[00:04:19.180] - Rich Klein

So your dad was career military up to that point?

[00:04:24.720] - Chris Holloway

Let's see. He was 100% service connected or 100% disabled. Okay. But it was late before they actually acknowledged that and went back and retroactively made good on all the payments that he should have been getting. It was 1997 when he received the retro payment, and that was the push that he needed in order to get us out of Massachusetts and to central Missouri of any place. But he was a career musician. He had a construction company that built beautiful theaters, Agora Ballrooms, They built a recording studio in Massachusetts that the Rolling Stones played at. Jay Giles was there, Aerosmith. After he was settling down on on the construction side. He worked at the recording studio for a while. My family is quite connected to the music industry.

[00:05:42.340] - Rich Klein

That's cool. Do you play an instrument then?

[00:05:46.520] - Chris Holloway

I can peck at a guitar. I'm trying to get better at it. I actually just, a couple of days ago, finally said, You know what? I'm going to hang one in my office next to my desk. Instead of wasting I'm messing around on my phone, if I feel like I need a distraction, I can just grab a guitar.

[00:06:05.840] - Rich Klein

So is your goal to become one of the guys around the campfire, playing the guitar and singing some country songs or something?

[00:06:14.160] - Chris Holloway

Yeah. So that would be a high aspiration. I would really just like to be able to sit in the background during a jam night and make it look like I know what I'm doing.

[00:06:30.000] - Rich Klein

Okay. So one step above air guitar?

[00:06:33.580] - Chris Holloway

Exactly. Yeah, that's all I'm aspiring to get accomplished here.

[00:06:38.520] - Rich Klein

I always wanted to be the lead singer in a rock and roll band. Then my voice, when I changed, when I hit puberty, my voice just did not... I can't carry a tune in a 20-gallon bucket.

[00:06:58.160] - Chris Holloway

Same. Yeah, cannot sing, and I have pretty bad rhythm.

[00:07:02.580] - Rich Klein

You're the average white guy, huh?

[00:07:06.680] - Chris Holloway

Pretty much, yeah. I don't know what it is, but I'll catch it and I can play along, and I'm doing good. And then a squirrel will run by or something shiny will distract me. And then it takes me a good five minutes to get back on track.

[00:07:27.780] - Rich Klein

So when you guys moved to Missouri, That young age and then through high school, what student were you?

[00:07:41.880] - Chris Holloway

I was At best, really, in high school, I was really at best as close as I could to barely passing as possible. I I definitely signed up for the work release program so I could leave after the third class.

[00:08:06.760] - Rich Klein

Okay. I thought work release program was like a jail thing. Prison thing? Yeah.

[00:08:12.960] - Chris Holloway

It didn't sound right after I said it. I'm not sure what they called it, but anything I could do to stay out of school. I played hooky quite often. I ran with a crowd of friends that School was the last thing on our minds. I really didn't apply myself a whole lot. Again, distracted. I was trying to come up with something else. I started my own business when I was in high school.

[00:08:47.220] - Rich Klein

What was that?

[00:08:48.900] - Chris Holloway

I bought an ice cream truck. Well, I bought a FedEx van. Okay. Cut a big hole in the side of it and bought some ice cream coolers or freezers out of an old gas station that was closing, and then set it up with a big bank of any 12 volt batteries I could find, found a cheap invertor somewhere. Actually, so we called it 40 Licks ice cream after the Rolling Stones. But I made it a full-time job in the summer selling ice cream, and then in the winter, I turned it into a bit of a roachcoach, and I'd sell hot sandwiches and chili dogs and stuff like that, and go around to the commercial areas where the warehouses and businesses were, and I'd sell lunch out of it during the winter. It actually did really well. When I sold it as a business, it's funny, the truck still it exists. It runs in Columbia, Missouri now. I'm not sure if he did. He changed the name of it, which makes sense. It was silly. But yeah, anything I could do to Try to find a way to... I still do it. I call it productive procrastination.

[00:10:20.940] - Chris Holloway

If I can find a way out of doing paperwork or schoolwork or whatever it may be, that's still semi-productive. I'm going for it.

[00:10:29.640] - Rich Klein

So What made you jump into the ice cream truck business?

[00:10:39.980] - Chris Holloway

Let's see, Warsaw is a pretty small town, so there's not a whole lot of opportunity. My dad, he was pretty set on me starting to work and earn my own way at a young age. I think he set me up with my first doing lawn care for a big campground at 13 or 14 years old. Let's see. I think there was a summer where I didn't go out and actively try to find any work as any teenage boy would lean towards. I thought going to the beach and just hanging out all the time was going to be even better. So He told me, Hey, if you're not going to go find a job, you need to make a job. So I sold my dirt bike. Let's see, I had a dirt bike and an old '87 Mustang Fastback that I was trying to fix up and get going. Sold those two things and barely scraped enough money up to buy an ice cream truck. I don't know. It was a complete impulsive to go at it. But Warsaw didn't have an ice cream truck, so it seemed like the logical business to start up as a 16-year-old.

[00:12:12.080] - Chris Holloway

I had my license, so I could drive It was really actually a lot of fun.

[00:12:19.420] - Rich Klein

What music did the ice cream truck play?

[00:12:22.900] - Chris Holloway

It played the normal silly ice cream music. Because the kids all come running out of the house at that point. Yeah, the one that everybody knew. But I, as any 16-year-old boy that is into automotive and cars and playing with those kinds of toys would be. I wouldn't save up enough money, and then I'd go buy some amplifiers and some speakers and all that stuff. So I ended up having a pretty good sound system in it, which turned out pretty well as high school progressed, I started becoming the guy that threw the parties. Even freshman year in high school, I was putting on the barn burners that were bringing everybody in the high school out to the country. We started incorporating the ice cream truck into those parties. The sound system would cover music for us. I'd take all the ice cream out of the coolers, put them in the deep freeze in the shop, and then kegs would drop into the ice cream coolers. We'd pick a friend, whoever wants to drink for free, can sit in the ice cream truck and dispense alcohol the whole time. But yeah, it turned into a party wagon It was a party wagon on the weekends at night, and then an ice cream truck by day.

[00:14:10.960] - Rich Klein

I could just see that. That's awesome. What painting? I mean, did you have? Did you have the typical ice cream on the side, or was it like graffiti painted? What was the scheme, the advertising scheme?

[00:14:28.740] - Chris Holloway

The truck was all You could still see where it said FedEx on it, but I guess that didn't really much matter to me. So what I did was... My mom's really good at free-hand drawing, so I asked her if she'd paint. We did the Rolling Stones tongue on the side real big, and it was licking an ice cream cone. So that was the logo if you will. My dad always joked that one of these days I was going to get a cease and desist from Keith Richards.

[00:15:11.560] - Rich Klein

So then you While in school, were there any classes that you really liked? Like shop, or did you play sports at all or anything?

[00:15:26.240] - Chris Holloway

No, terrible at sports. I I went to machine shop. It was like an alternative or whatever that may be, an elective class. They bused us up to Sidelia, which is about a half an hour north of us to the college, and we could do machine shop up there. I did that for a half a year. I didn't end up renewing it. I was enjoying leaving school. I'd have three periods towards the end of it. It was hilarious. It was you get in and then you have lifetime sports, which is essentially like a gym class. Then I had band, and then I had study hall. Study hall for no reason other than you just sit there for 45, 50 minutes and wait until you can go. That bell would ring, and then off I'd go. During the school year, though, I wouldn't really drive the ice cream truck during the school year. There wasn't a whole lot other than on weekends. I was hanging drywall with a couple of guys down in Warsaw. That was fun. We'd build or drywall houses down at Lake of the Ozarks that, man, only It could have been lifetime goals or fuel for...

[00:17:05.580] - Chris Holloway

I don't want to be a bum all my life because, man, there were some amazing houses that we got to work in. I did the drywall thing for the... I think that was my senior year until I graduated. And then once I graduated, sold the ice cream truck, actually turned a profit on the business itself, which was wild. And that funded my college career.

[00:17:43.220] - Rich Klein

So you go from being a student in high school that you just didn't really care about it. You graduate, and then you decide to go to college as well?

[00:17:56.400] - Chris Holloway

Yeah, not traditional college, though. I went to a tech school, the Nashville Auto Diesel College in Nashville, Tennessee. I went there, let's see. So it was immediately after graduation. I didn't even have a summer Afterwards, it was graduate, and I think within two weeks, I was living in Nashville. So I went to tech school. I got my degree in advanced diesel electronics, which was a complete 180 from high school. I ended up graduating from there in the 98th percentile.

[00:18:40.440] - Rich Klein

Wow, good.

[00:18:41.940] - Chris Holloway

Yeah, I actually applied myself when that came around.

[00:18:47.600] - Rich Klein

And how long were you in that program? Was it like a one year, two year?

[00:18:52.280] - Chris Holloway

Two year.

[00:18:52.830] - Rich Klein

Two year.

[00:18:54.000] - Chris Holloway

Yeah, 24 months and no summer breaks in it. So it was 24 months through.

[00:19:00.580] - Rich Klein

Right. So trimester system where you might have Christmas off or whatever. Yeah. Week between semesters. Yeah. Okay. And once you got that degree, what did you do?

[00:19:15.480] - Chris Holloway

While I was in high school, I started dating a very wonderful woman who is now my wife. We stayed together when I left for Nashville. As soon as I graduated, I was booking it to go home to my girlfriend at the time. I moved to Springfield, Missouri. I got a job working at a Volvo and Mac dealership, and I thought I knew everything. Man, I was cocky. It was pretty terrible. I was the low man on the pole, so that meant if there's something inside of a trash truck, hopper that's broken, I'm in there working on it. Man, some of the truck drivers, their trucks are just absolutely nasty. There was a There was one driver that decided that it was more time-efficient to just urinate in his seat and replace his seat about every six months rather than stop to go to the bathroom, he'd just keep driving and he'd always get the seat changed coming through Springfield at the dealership. It was things like that, working in I'm not sure what smells worse, working in a trash truck hopper or a grain truck hopper. Grain truck hoppers are absolutely just... It's a horrible smell.

[00:20:58.240] - Chris Holloway

But those were things that I had to do. I think I was getting paid $11 or $13 an hour, somewhere in there. It was absolutely awful. But I was back with my girlfriend. We were living in an apartment, so I was really happy about that. I thought I was the best diesel technician you ever saw until it hit real world and I got a rude awakening. So At that point, I started becoming a bit more humble and actually listening when people that knew what they were talking about would speak. So that was helpful. They didn't run me off. I couldn't really imagine a worse job, though. Things just weren't going well. Springfield doesn't really have any great, Hey, this is going to be my career places. So that job was short-lived. I think I did it for a year. After the second time, I had to change the piss seat, if you will. I left. I just told him, I said, I'm not doing that again. I quit. And then that left He left me with no job, which was not okay for me. I've got to keep moving, got to keep working. I had a friend who was A friend of the family who was a union steward up here in Kansas City with the Teamsters, and he got me on working on material handling equipment, forklifts, aerial lifts, things like that.

[00:23:02.220] - Chris Holloway

I moved to Kansas City. Megan, my wife now, she was still in college, so she stayed in Springfield. I moved up here, way better pay, even as an apprentice. That company I was working at as an apprentice, about the time that I left to start more Expo as a legitimate business, I was running that dealership. I was the youngest service manager in Kansas City by far. I think, shoot, I was probably 25 years old, and I had Thirty technicians that worked for me, four parts guys, four office administrative staff. I did that for... Let's see. I ran I've been in that shop for six or seven years. Worked my way up from pushing the broom around the shop to running the show. A lot happened in between. I transitioned into sales. I spent some time in the sales department. Had a great run with that. I really enjoyed sales, which is nice. It rolls over into what I'm doing now. But then I really enjoyed just being in the being back with the grease and the burnt gear oil smells and all that.

[00:24:36.680] - Rich Klein

What about how you got involved with off-road or overlanding? How did that get all started?

[00:24:46.960] - Chris Holloway

Let's see. Before I took the sales position, I had a really nice, cherry little '87 Toyota pickup. I picked it up for $500. It wouldn't run, but it was mint. I think it had 80,000 miles on it. That truck had four low, and We'd use it. We'd go out and explore the Royal. I mean, me and whatever buddy I could talk in and go in with me. But a lot of just back gravel roading and exploring wherever we could. Southern Missouri was the area that we spent most of our time. Then I had an opportunity to trade it and get a little TJ. I think it was an '03 Rubicon. I really got into it just because I enjoyed working on the vehicle so much. It was fun to install my own lift kit. These are things that I was never able to afford to do throughout my childhood or back when I was in the tinkering at home. So just kept working on the Jeep and we take it more places. Then I took the sales position and it was more mobile sales, door-to-door or warehouse-door-to-warehouse store, seeing if we could sell forklifts to them.

[00:26:29.280] - Chris Holloway

So I I went to sell the Jeep, I bought a Ford Fusion. It was about the equivalent feeling of when a man realizes he has to buy a minivan nowadays, it seems like. So I got in the Ford Fusion. But then when I got out of sales, immediately right back to a Wrangler. So I got a 2012 JK, which I still have. I can see it sitting right outside my office right now. Bone stock and immediately just joined into the community and started hitting off road parks every weekend that we could, tearing it up, bringing it home, fixing it, Just really enjoying it. And it was leaning pretty heavy towards pure off road, rock crawling, any of that. But then after you break so many axial shafts and tear so much stuff up, you start being a little bit easier on your rig. It was my daily driver at the time, too. We always camped whenever we went out to the off-road parks. We realized that camping was right up there, was as much fun as we were having wheeling. Then started to look at other places. Where can we go find this first camping?

[00:28:07.550] - Chris Holloway

How can we connect these trails down in Northern Arkansas and work our way through the Ozark National Forest camping along the way, which really at that point in time, it wasn't... Overlanding was... And it's still very young in its infancy in the United States here, but it wasn't even a term that we were using. It's just, Hey, we're going to go out riding around and camp for four or five days. We'll be back. So that's where it all started and the love for it came through. The community was just amazing, though. I I've made so many friends, even just starting out doing it. You'd meet people at random campsites, and I still talk to them today. I'm a people person myself. So if I can find a vehicle, if you will, that connects me to people better, or a hobby that connects me to people better, this was a no-brainer.

[00:29:25.360] - Rich Klein

When in this period did you How did you get married?

[00:29:32.700] - Chris Holloway

Let's see. I got married in 2014. I was married even before I bought this JK. Funny enough, the JK, a friend of mine was selling it. He worked at a dealership, so he just dropped it off at the house. I drove it for, I think, a week. I signed the paperwork on it. Hey, let's do it. Then two days after I pulled the trigger on it, my wife found out that we were pregnant. It's funny. Within 48 hours, had it been 72 hours earlier, I probably wouldn't have pulled the trigger on buying this Jeep. Then who knows what the trajectory of life could have been. We always joke about that, Megan and I. It's like, this is the vehicle that essentially changed your life. Because when I was looking at getting back into Jeeps, I was also looking at race cars and the new Camaro was just coming out at that time. I've always had a thing for classic cars. I could have ended up in the drag racing industry. It's just wild how things align and work out when you make them work out.

[00:31:06.820] - Rich Klein

You probably would have ended up in the lowered minivan line.

[00:31:11.180] - Chris Holloway

I'm still not against that. That's still a possibility. There's a couple of things on my bucket list. One of them is a sailboat, and the other one is a lowered minivan.

[00:31:24.900] - Rich Klein

A blowboat, huh?

[00:31:26.760] - Chris Holloway

Okay. Yeah, maybe so. I live about three It's like 20 minutes from a sailboat, Lee. Okay.

[00:31:32.780] - Rich Klein

That makes sense.

[00:31:34.100] - Chris Holloway

With all the camping stuff, the solar and battery management systems and lithium, all the fun things that go into overlanding can easily, or I think anyway, easily pass through right to a sailboat.

[00:31:53.160] - Rich Klein

Yeah, any boat. We're setting our big cruising boat up that way with the Solar and the Starlink and all the good stuff.

[00:32:07.320] - Chris Holloway

Exactly. It's just another medium to travel and explore with.

[00:32:14.040] - Rich Klein

I got to have motors, though.

[00:32:18.400] - Chris Holloway

I've had a sailboat before. It was very small. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was just a little two-man, 14-foot boat. I really enjoyed having it. Now I see all these 30-footers up at the lake, and it's hard not to want one.

[00:32:40.020] - Rich Klein

Let's talk about how you jumped into the off-road show promoting? How did that all spin out?

[00:32:53.480] - Chris Holloway

So let's see. In taking the JK to these off road parks and making friends and joining the community, I started attending events. And anytime there was something going on, I've got a dozen off-road parks within two, three hours of me, so plenty to choose from. But we'd hop from event to event. Started doing my own events. They started out really small. The first one that I ever did, it was funny. I called Kansas Rocks, which is an off-road park here. It was just a couple of hours from the house, and I said, Hey, I want to have an event at the park. And he's asking, Okay, are you talking about renting the whole place? What are we talking about here? And I said, Just... And it was a Facebook event, really. I was just trying to put together maybe 10, 15 rigs. I contacted a bunch of businesses and got a bunch of stuff to give away. And we rode trail, and I halfway through the trail, I think there were about 20 rigs. Opened up the back of my Jeep and it looked like a sales hut just in the middle of nowhere in the South Road Park.

[00:34:27.380] - Chris Holloway

We did a raffle and gave everything away. That was a lot It was fun. I promoted the hack out of anybody that was willing to kick down a couple hats or a couple shirts or sticker packs or whatever it may be. I really just enjoyed doing that. Then we started wanting to just throw more parties. It brings me back to high school. I'm the party guy. I like throwing the party more than attending it.

[00:35:02.400] - Rich Klein

Right.

[00:35:04.440] - Chris Holloway

So needed a reason to have some of these events. So we linked up with a veterans Group. It was the... Let's see. This was... Of all groups, it was the combat veterans motorcyclists association. But they just We had a small group. They wanted to do great things, but didn't really have any way to raise funds. So we started just throwing parties and raising money for them. I did that for two years. I think we did Probably a half a dozen small events total. And then the very last event that I did, we completely sold out the off-road park. We had $30,000 or so worth of raffle prizes that we were selling tickets for. We raised between apparel sales and raffle ticket sales and whatever cut we got out of ticket sales from the off-road park. I think we raised over 60K in this one event. I had a band drove all the way up from Nashville. We come play on a flatbed. It was a big deal. And My mom and dad came down. They were there. They were into the cabin and came and stayed. Some other family came in. Then we've got a friend of the family who's been an RV show and boat show promoter going on 40 years now.

[00:36:52.860] - Chris Holloway

He caught wind of what I was doing and wanted to come check it out. It's funny. I I remember standing there at the stage, visiting with the band before they went on, and looking up and seeing this big ridiculous Cadillac come down the hill into the Soft Road Park, It's definitely not a road for a Cadillac to be coming down. I knew exactly who it was. I thought it was bizarre that he was there. He parked, came over and said hello, and I didn't think anything of it other than it's just strange that he's there. But then he walked around for a bit, and I went on about my duties with this event. Then after the band was done playing, he came over and pulled me aside and said, Hey, who else is doing anything like this or larger in the Midwest? I couldn't really think of much. I had been to just about every event that I could go to, and this one was larger than those ones were. I told him, I said, I don't think anybody. He said, Well, after all this is said and done, I want you to drive back through Warsaw on your way home.

[00:38:21.400] - Chris Holloway

Swing by the house. I have an idea for you. All right. I packed up, we're rolling out, said goodbye to everybody. I took a detour, stopped at his place in Warsaw. And he said, Man, you can make a living out of what you're doing if you do it correctly. And I'll teach you how to do it. At that point in time, I'm running the forklift dealership. I'm working 65 hours a week, making pretty darn good money for a 25-year-old or 20, probably I was only a 27-year-old at the time. When you work for somebody and you have a pretty comfortable job, it's scary to think you're going to go out and do your own thing. So I politely declined. A week later, he's calling me on the phone. Hey, did you give any more thought to it? Yeah, I don't think I could do it. Then I just kept calling and just kept calling and pushing and pushing and pushing. Finally, I said, All right, but I don't have any money. He taught me how to fundraise for this thing and book sponsors early before the event. As you book vendors and sponsors, it'll help pay for bills until you actually have the event.

[00:39:53.260] - Chris Holloway

He taught me into it. He's familiar with the place. He has his boat and RV shows at the same place that I've got more and he's been at that facility for 30 years. So he said, Just start small. You can rent the West Hall. It's 34,000 square feet. Whatever it costs, you can They'll delay your payments if you ask them nice enough on deposits and stuff like that to get the facility paid for. So he showed me those tricks and gave me a little black book with some trade secrets. And we gave it a shot and had the first event. Ticket sales weren't online. It was Cash at the Gate only, so I had no idea how many people were going to attend. I promoted that little event hard for 14 months before the date day one of the show. Man, it was a lot of going to other events and further networking or really joining the industry side of the community. And it was a whole lot of, I've never done this before and you don't know me, and I don't know you, but I've got a pretty good feeling. If you trust me, I think I can pull it off.

[00:41:30.060] - Chris Holloway

And I was able to talk 50 businesses into coming in and trusting me and buying booth space at the event. So day one of the show came around and I was in the back just chatting. I had no idea if there were going to be 50 people or 500 people come through the door. My wife came and got me. She was working the ticket gate, which she still does. We're a very family event. She still runs the ticket gate. But she came and got me and she goes, You have to see this. You're not going to believe it. And she dragged me up to the front and there was a line Out the door and all the way to the back fence, which is quite far. We had bought 500 wristbands for the event, and 500 wristbands were gone that Friday morning. It got to the point where we were just using permanent markers and just making a mark on people's hands. We honestly really didn't even care. At that point, it was just mind-blowing. But we had just about 2,000 people come in for that first event.

[00:42:48.360] - Rich Klein

Very good.

[00:42:49.460] - Chris Holloway

Which was absolutely insane. Then the event's over and we're sitting at dinner. That was when I could run the event with a staff of four, myself included. My wife and I and two of our really close friends, Brooklyn and Brandon, were sitting at dinner and just in speechless, we didn't realize it was going to be like that. That's when I decided, You know what? Let's do it again. Any money that we we were able to make during this first event, let's just put 100% of it right back into the next one, which has been a great recipe for success since year one. We reinvested it and I doubled the size of the facility. So instead of just renting the West Hall, I rented the East and West, which gave me a total of about 70,000 square feet. And then I pulled the trigger, signed the contract, and then COVID hit. So that was absolutely terrifying. Many, many events, even the large overlanding events, postponed or canceled their events during that time. I went back to Mike, the guy that gave me all the advice on this stuff, and said, Hey, what do I do? He said, The show goes on.

[00:44:33.220] - Chris Holloway

We don't stop. You just keep going. Fight like hell. You're going to have to fight harder than you thought you were, but you got to make it work. You cannot postpone. You can't change the dates. The fairgrounds down there in Springfield's booked 100% of the year anyway, so I wouldn't even be able to change the dates. We kept pushing, and we did everything that we to you through COVID. We learned all about it and we did all the protocols and we had to present our case to insurance companies to show them that We were doing this and this and this. We had to have masks, which was awful. Nobody liked that. But we followed all the guidelines to a T, and we were able to have the event. It doubled in size and the attendance doubled. To boot, the other speed bump that we had was... This was when the show was back in February. We had a quarter inch of ice and about two inches of snow on top of that during that event. It still doubled the attendance. That was when I said, You know what? If If I can work 65 hours a week running this forklift dealership and still pull this off, imagine how great we could make the event if I had 65 hours a week to put towards it instead of a little bit here and there.

[00:46:20.060] - Chris Holloway

I put my letter of resignation in at the dealership and grabbed an old computer out of the storage room and set myself up with a little home office. And now, fast forward seven years, and we've by far got the largest event in the Midwest, and I think it would rank at least top six in the US, I'd say.

[00:46:53.420] - Rich Klein

That's pretty cool. That's pretty cool. And are you seeing typically the vendors all return and adding, or are you losing some vendors along the way? What do you think is the percentage of loss from one year to the next?

[00:47:14.260] - Chris Holloway

Let's see.

[00:47:15.020] - Rich Klein

So it changes a little bit every year. I know there's always going to be some loss because companies go out of business. They don't have the marketing budget, especially smaller companies. So I understand that.

[00:47:28.980] - Chris Holloway

Oh, yeah. Yeah, we've definitely seen that. We've seen a lot of startups come and go, which we've seen a lot of startups come and stay also and absolutely dominate their section of the industry, which is way cool. It's so much fun to see somebody come in with an idea and get a 10 by 10 booth. And then two years later, they're occupying a 20 by 120, almost taking up an entire hall. So we've seen some great successes. We have seen some go. I would say at the beginning, the very first year, when we doubled in size, we had about 80 to 90% vendor retention. They all stuck with us. And a lot of those vendors that were there the first year are still with us, too, which is really fun. The larger the event gets and the more vendors that we have, we see that number, the retention percentage, probably drop a bit. I'd say we probably hold 70 % every year of our vendors. So that's this year. That's great. Yeah, it's good. And vendors, they don't cancel or leave because they didn't have a good event, which is my main priority to make sure that everybody's successful.

[00:48:57.420] - Chris Holloway

For a lot of these companies, Missouri is not close to much. A lot of our clients are on the West Coast. And there's a lot of them from the, I call it the upper left, the Northwest. They'll come in and they'll just play with us, and then they'll give it a year or two, and then they'll come back and they'll just play with us. So they're not hitting it every year, but they're making it a point to come out and touch the Midwest every couple of years or so. But every year we have we have new vendors that come in, and a lot of them stay. It's an honor when you get the phone call. They say, Hey, we had a great first-year event. We're coming in from California. We're going to do it again. So We've got pretty good retention. Every year, when we're starting to reset up booth space, I send out a ride of first refusal. So if you had the space last year, you get first dibs on it this year. And it's funny, the first year of the Expo, it took me 14 months to get 50 vendors committed. Now, when we do write a first refusal, I can send out an email and we have 75 that are renewed within three days.

[00:50:39.320] - Chris Holloway

So it's wild just to see the difference of it, but it's a true testament to how my staff treats people, how we approach things as an event.

[00:50:55.980] - Rich Klein

Yeah, I really enjoyed being there this year, and I appreciate that you allowed us to come in like you did. And that was for the Off-Road Motorsports Hall of Fame. And I don't know if I'll be making this next one because we're looking at doing the same thing as those Northwest companies do, where we'll cycle in different parts of the country like every other year or something like that. It really depends on a lot of different factors for us right now Yeah, and that is completely understandable.

[00:51:35.400] - Chris Holloway

If I had a business where I was traveling and selling whatever widget or truck accessory it may be, I would be trying to hit at different times of the year, different locations. I've heard it enough, too. Enough times, the It's the first time you ever hear it, it's like, Oh, man, what do we do to upset you? But that's not the case. Now that I'm seasoned in it enough, I know when they're telling me like, Yeah, well, next April, we're going to go hit something in Vancouver or wherever it may be. It makes sense, and I completely understand that.

[00:52:28.360] - Rich Klein

Yeah, especially Like with us, we're only selling a dream, or a concept, or information. We're not, there's no, there's nobody's buying it. It's, we're just giving away that information of who we are. And Even with companies with product, it's getting that national saturation. So, unless you got a big enough team or you're a big enough business where you can hit all the shows all the time, it's pretty difficult out there to get to everything. There's a lot of stuff going on. It is.

[00:53:13.220] - Chris Holloway

This would be year number seven for more Expo, really year number 10 for me doing events. And since I started doing these events, the amount of them has quintupled. So we also know that these vendors, these businesses can only attend so many events. It's internally, we call it event fatigue. How many times... I know that when I leave to go to anything, say I'm going to the Save Expo in Florida, when I leave for that, I'm gone three days, but it feels... When I get back to my desk, it feels like I've been gone I've spent thousands of dollars in travel, and I've been away from my family, and I can't imagine having or being expected to attend all of the events. That's why when I meet new potential clients, it's always wonderful to hear that they want to come out and do that. But I always put myself in their shoes, man. It's hard to expect anybody to do anything like that. There's just so many events. Right.

[00:54:40.460] - Rich Klein

So you got to have your marketing plan together and be able to compete against those other events. I know that from doing the We Rock events, we don't have a lot of competition in the rock crawling world any longer. In fact, truly none. Some rock racing, but that's about it. I get it. I really do.

[00:55:10.760] - Chris Holloway

Yeah, it's wild. I'm honored that we make the shortlist every year for so many vendors. This year, 2025, I think we had somewhere around 230. 225 would probably be a safe number to assume for vendors. The year before that, we had a whole PowerSports division, which has become its own event now. I'm actually, I think I'm less than 60 days away from the PowerSports Expo. But that year, I think we had just under 300 vendors. And it's amazing when people say, Yeah, we're coming to Missouri from fill in the Blank, it's flattering. It really is.

[00:56:01.220] - Rich Klein

Well, especially if you're the only... It might help that you're the only show in that sector of the country. You know, like California, there's... If you take California and Arizona and mix them together, you've got probably five or six, seven shows in the off-road world, if not more.

[00:56:25.140] - Chris Holloway

Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Dirt Expo, Overland Expo's now in California, obviously, they're Mecca.

[00:56:33.680] - Rich Klein

Yeah, Sandsport show. I mean, all this stuff that's going on. It's crazy.

[00:56:39.500] - Chris Holloway

It really is. Yeah. I mean, and there are other events here in the Midwest, and they're fantastic events. They're more get together, gathering style events than they are true vendor focus trade shows.

[00:56:56.560] - Rich Klein

Right. Right. So what's on Besides the horizon, besides the Power Sports show that you're adding, anything else that you're looking at doing, moving, getting outside of that area, maybe expanding? Anything?

[00:57:13.140] - Chris Holloway

So there's There's a lot happening after 2026 that is all for the better. It's still It's still pretty top secret at this point, but the way that More Expo is going to be laid out in 2027 is going to be 180 degrees different, all for the better. I told you at the beginning, we take all the money and reinvest it into the next year and that hasn't changed. What's nice is as the business has been successful, we've been able to save for a really big rainy day. We're going to spend all the money this year or next year, but we're excited to see some major growth. As far as on the horizon, I'm I'm always looking at the Overland space as what can it become? What's different in it? What's changing? And a lot is changing since COVID. That's really when the huge spike hit, for lack of a better term. But when the huge spike hit and it was really an insurgency. But now you see people getting into it less impulsively, more intentionally. That means that they're using overlanding as a tool for their whatever else hobby it is. I call it the dot, dot, dot.

[00:59:28.320] - Chris Holloway

I go overlanding to either go mountain biking or to go hiking with my family. That is my dot, dot, dot. Some people, they go overlanding to go participate in shooting sports, to go hunting, to go kayaking, birdwatching, whatever it may be. But that is the dot, dot, dot. The big focus in the past couple of years has been finding vendors that participate in activities that aren't exactly specific to overlanding. You can only have so many just rooftop tent vendors. If there's any rooftop tent benders out there, no, we cannot have enough of you guys. But you can only have... It all just can't be one thing, because then it boxes so many other people out. So we want to incorporate hiking, shooting sports, kayaking, fishing, hunting.

[01:00:43.880] - Rich Klein

Which totally makes sense, because the customer that's there for the overlanding is doing those activities. So getting those people that are involved in the activity from a manufacturing or a A distribution point is critical, I believe.

[01:01:07.740] - Chris Holloway

Yeah, it really is, and it's working. We've brought in several from shooting sports just to narrow down to one. And they're doing great. They're returning every year and coming in bigger and stronger every year. We've seen additions in And in that particular segment, like Valtek safe.

[01:01:33.880] - Rich Klein

Caponeau's card is sitting here right on my desk. I'm looking at it.

[01:01:40.180] - Chris Holloway

I've had a Valtek probably for a decade, and I love that thing. And then when I was introduced to Caponeau at Valtek space, I couldn't believe it. I was almost star struck. I just thought it was so cool. And now that they're returning to Morexpo, it's awesome. Silencer Central is another one. These guys are just... There are other companies that are realizing, Hey, I don't sell Tens or oversize tires. I sell silencers or suppression systems, but I can see where it fits. It's nice to see that other companies are coming into the industry.

[01:02:30.000] - Rich Klein

Yeah. Well, that's awesome. I won't ask any more questions about anything like that because it's super secret what's coming up. But I do want to thank you for coming out and talking me into coming to the show. I think that was good for us and good for the Off-Road Motorsports Hall of Fame. I was amazed at how many, I'd call them expats from California, Arizona, Nevada, are in that area in the Midwest.

[01:03:07.500] - Chris Holloway

Yeah, really so.

[01:03:10.000] - Rich Klein

I mean, people coming up to me and goes, Oh, yeah, I used to run with this race team and that race team. And I know these guys on your backdrop, because we have all of the the inductees on that backdrop and how many people actually knew the drivers because they had been involved with the racing at some point. I was blown away. I figured I was going to spend and have to talk to every single person to explain what off-road racing was all about. That wasn't the case at all.

[01:03:50.560] - Chris Holloway

I love hearing that, and I get that pretty often. I think we're still the We're a small family-owned event. I don't have a billion-dollar company in New York behind me. In that, it's assumed that it's just a small farm, expo, small event. Me and my whole team included have worked really, really hard to make sure that it's professionally done and professionally set up. That way, you're not walking into an event in the middle of a field where the grass may or may not be mowed. It's something that we hear pretty often. Oh, we weren't expecting that, which is nice. It's always great to hear. What I don't want to hear is, No, it's exactly the way I thought it was going to be.

[01:04:59.020] - Rich Klein

True. Very Very true. Well, I want to just say that everybody that's listening to this, if you've got a business and you're interested in getting more saturation into the Midwest market, look at More Expo. Chris, I'll get you to give your contact information or how people can get in touch with you. But really, it's a great show. I've done a lot of shows over my last in the off-road industry, and it's right up there. A lot of good engagement with the attendees, the enthusiasts that come out, and all the rest of the vendors there are really nice and very helpful, and your staff was great. I want to encourage not only businesses, but also the enthusiasts to come out to the More Expo, and that's in April, correct?

[01:05:59.820] - Chris Holloway

Yeah, Yes. April 17th and 18th, 2026.

[01:06:04.040] - Rich Klein

17th and 18th of April. And how do people get in touch with you?

[01:06:09.540] - Chris Holloway

So if anybody wants to get in touch, there's a form on the website, a contact us. Again, small family-owned company. All of that goes right to me. Or if you just want to send me an email directly, it's pretty easy. It's Chris@moreexpo. Com.

[01:06:29.140] - Rich Klein

More is with two O's.

[01:06:31.310] - Chris Holloway

Yeah, 2 O's, two E's, More Expo. Okay.

[01:06:34.760] - Rich Klein

Excellent. Well, Chris, I want to say thank you so much for spending this morning with me and discussing your life and what you're doing. I appreciate it.

[01:06:45.360] - Chris Holloway

Yeah, absolute. It's an honor to have the opportunity. Thank you for coming in and for all the things that you guys are doing with the Off-Road Hall of Fame. It's very impressive, and the industry needs that to immortalize these athletes. I appreciate what you guys are doing as well.

[01:07:09.640] - Rich Klein

Well, thank you. Let's hope I can get back out there. I don't know if I can do it this year, but for sure the next year. And we'll see you then.

[01:07:21.740] - Chris Holloway

There's always a thought for you.

[01:07:23.190] - Rich Klein

All right. I appreciate it. Thank you, Chris. Bye-bye.

[01:07:27.120] - Chris Holloway

Bye.

[01:07:28.860] - Rich Klein

Well, that's another episode of Conversations with Big Rich. I'd like to thank you all for listening. If you could do us a favor and leave us a review on any podcast service that you happen to be listening on, or send us an email or a text message or a Facebook message, and let me know any ideas that you have or if there's anybody that you have that you think would be a great guest, please forward the contact information to me so that we can try to get them on. And always remember, live life to the fullest. Enjoying life is a must. Follow your dreams and live life with all the gusto you can. Thank you.