Basically, a yard sale for helicopter gunships, tanks, artillery, large quantities of automatic weapons, and other useful tools for starting and finishing small wars.
Coming in two forms:
- Legal: Organised by a government or big corporation and taking place in a conference centre. Attract protestors.
- Illegal: By a crime gang or terrorist group, located in some field somewhere. Attract police and military.
While it has almost certainly occured in fiction, having a
Hood Ornament Hottie in skimpy camo holding a large machine gun sounds too much like self parody for any real company to actually do it, regardless of what occurs at E3.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- A short for Gundam SEED Astray shows Lowe and the gang at a fair on Earth and getting in trouble after he buys the head of a BuCue containing sensitive military information.
Film
- Black Hawk Down features extensive sequences showing off that the entire city Mogadishu qualifies as an Arms Fair, despite being under the control of a ruthless warlord who will kill people trying to get the food supplies sent by various aid groups.
- In the Pre Titles Sequence of Tomorrow Never Dies, James Bond must infiltrate an Arms Fair to confirm its location and allow a Tomahawk missile to take it out. As the missile is launched, he discovers an L-39 Albatros with nuclear torpedoes on board...
- Lord of War has had several - all illegal. And with Russian-Military-themed women dancing on tanks.
- The one with the Russian-Military-themed women was implied to be legit, or as legit as you can get with an arms sale held by corrupt elements of the post-Soviet military hosted by a laissez-faire Middle Eastern state.
- The plot of Deal Of The Century revolves around one.
Live Action TV
Video Games
- Goldeneye for the Wii features a level taking place at an arms fair.
Real Life
- DSEi, held every year in London.
- Similarly, small gun shows held in various places all over America.
- The Gun Markets of Pakistan
from Vice TV
- After the collapse of the Soviet Union, just about anything military was up for sale from KGB badges to mothballed fighter planes.
