Vegas 2026

The Vegas Shoot is arguably the largest and most prestigious indoor archery tournament in the world. Taking place currently in March each year in the city of Las Vegas, its a competition where anything up to 5,000 archers will compete. For many ride or die archers, its a kind of annual pilgrimage to a wild archery themed event with 900 cash prizes up for grabs. But oddly, its not just for dribbly insane archers. It attracts everyone from first‑timers to Olympic champions, juniors to octogenarians. It’s a blend of history, spectacle, high pressure high reward, trade show and US style convention with some shooting thrown in for good measure. Archery's most iconic indoor event? Yeah .. probably .. if you don't mind the overly glitzy Vegas backdrop and 100 slot machines next to your breakfast table in the restaurant.

The competition has its founding back in 1962. The embryonic Vegas shoot started life as the National Field Archery Association Championships which was held at the Sahara Hotel in Las Vegas. After a few years away, it returned to the Sahara Hotel for an extended run between 1966–1980 but thereafter it went walkabout as it repeatedly outgrew its venues. By the 1980's it had made it to the Tropicana (1981–1992), then the Sands Expo Center (1993–2000), then the Riviera Hotel (2001–2011). From 2012 to 2024, it was hosted at the South Point Hotel & Casino where the shoot had access to fantastic shootie facilities. However due to spiraling costs, the 2025 event was moved to the Horseshoe and Paris hotels (part of the Caesar Entertainments group) where the shoot will be held this year .. its 60th.

South Point's arena was awesome if pricey!

As the competition is so large, its divided into two very different divisions and spread over 3 days. The two divisions are Championship and Flights (with separate categories for juniors). Championship is a straight shoot off in the usual categories - male, female, junior etc within the various bow types with a shoot off to break ties in the top 3 slots. Flights are interesting in that your scores for the first 2 days are added together as a handicap and then you compete against 25-40 people who scored similarly to you on day three for MONEY! For each division, the round is straightforward. Archers shoot a standard 18m indoor target, typically the Vegas 3‑spot or single‑spot 40cm face with 3 rounds of 30 arrows. One round shot each day for the three days of the shoot.

The jewel in the crown is the championship division where the goal is as simple as it gets: shoot the highest possible score over three days. The peak of this division is arguably the championship compound for professional shooters. So good are some of the compounders on these targets with the larger recurve 10 ring in play, that pros need perfect rounds to stay in contention. The best of the best are aiming for this perfection so as to make the 900 club*. To make it into the club, 90 arrows .. 90x10's. Even with the larger 10 ring, this is a challenge. Make your 900 and you'll go into the shoot-off. Drop just one point and its over. This is the mecca for professional compounders where they have to bring their A game every single arrow. This is the famous shoot‑off that determines the champion from all the perfect scores — a sudden‑death, high‑pressure spectacle watched by thousands. After a couple of "warm up" ends where the recurve 10 is the 10 in use .. it suddenly becomes a nerves inducing "only the X is a 10" and then the eliminations start. This year the X ring will be shrinking as the shoot-off progresses (rumoured to be every 5 ends). From 20mm (size of the normal X ring) down to 15mm and then down to 10. This is going to get brutal fast!

So as a competitor, when you aren't shooting, tuning, repairing and gossiping .. there is obviously a lot you can be doing. It is after all VEGAS BABY! While not every venue has been in prime position, the current location at the Horseshoe and Paris hotels is literally two hundred yards from the Bellagio which is the famous casino robbed in Ocean's 11. The famous strip is right there to be experienced. There is also a pretty substantial trade show on site where you can get a look at new kit, talk to vendors and mibi buy a few tiny bits and pieces ... or, knowing archers, a new bow, arrows and a commemorative tee-shirt!

Lovely walls and chandeliers you have there squire. Shame if anything happened to them!

We are, however, ignoring an elephant in the room ... or more accurately the chandelier in the ballroom. These are casino's where the tourney is shot. And while South Point had a huge arena that was perfect (see pic above), few of the others have anything like it. This means archers are being let loose in ballrooms. Very ornate ballrooms with chandeliers. And archers do what archers have the potential to do .. they miss. Bizarrely back curtain material tends to be quite scarce or minimalist and there's no protection possible for the chandeliers. As a result there is damage to walls and dangly things. How much damage would you hazard 5,000 archers going ham for 3 days could cause? Had a think? Got a number? We have the number and last year it was $30,000 to repair the damage. What are these maniacs doing? Chandelier hunting? Swinging from the things? The imagination runs wild!

This year, the Vegas shoot will be over the weekend of the 26th-29th March. There are often video updates posted on YouTube and the shoot-offs has been covered live in the past. Its worth taking a look at this competition if only to get a sense of the size and feel of the event. The atmosphere is electric with the normal buzz and bright lights of Vegas over laid with whingy archers and the constant twang/thud of thousands of arrows. That has to be a unique vibe!

Its also hilarious to watch archers wandering about fully active casinos filled with normal people while carting their bows and quivers. Equivalent to going to your local shopping centre and finding its been invaded by a fully armed orc army but one intent on doing their shopping! Its also been said that at peak times the corridor traffic resembles a migrating mob of heavily armed meerkats, all intent on finding the practice range but without getting distracted by a blackjack table.

And the cost? It doesn't matter if you drop the equivalent of a months salary on this weekend. Because there's no need to tell your significant other a thing. As we all know, what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas! Thank god GA's usual suspects haven't shown any interest in a trip .. that would be a travelogue worthy of the description "disaster movie"!

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*  And before compounders get too smug about The 900 Club being their personal domain, Brady Ellison (a little known recurver ;o) is a member of the 900 club. In 2020, Ellison shot 300 on all three days, a feat that was thought to be impossible. He scored 66 X's and 24 10's. Admittedly, Brady is the only recurver ever to get 900.

Video Tour of the Horseshoe hotel during the 2025 Vegas Tournament.
The Vegas Shoot 2026 webpage