Footwear Insight

GOA and TRE Cancel Upcoming Shows TRADE SHOWS THE FOOTWEAR EYE 10 • Footwear Insight ~ August 2020 footwearinsight.com Listen to the podcast with Barry McGeough on FootwearInsightExtra.com T wo specialty trade events scheduled f o r l a t e f a l l — Grassroots Connect and The Running Event — have been canceled, the latest casualties of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Grassroots Connect, hosted by outdoor specialty organization Grassroots Outdoor Alliance, was slated for Nov. 9-12 in new show location Kansas City, MO. The Running Event, the specialty running show now owned by Diversified Communications, was scheduled to take place on Dec. 1-3 in Austin, TX. "In the same way that it takes months for a full team to plan an event like Connect, it also takes a coordinated group effort to unravel one," Rich Hill, president of Grassroots Outdoor Alliance, said in a statement. "Kansas City has been an exceptional partner throughout this unusual season, and continues to vali- date our excitement about them as a new home for future fall Connect shows. We are incred- ibly grateful to the teams at the Kansas City Convention Center, Loews and Hotel Phillips for being amazing partners as we push back our plans for a gather- ing there until November 2021." The next Grassroots Connect is scheduled for June 7-10, 2021 in Knoxville, followed by Nov. 8-11, 2021, in Kansas City. The Running Event plans to return to Austin next year for a Nov. 30-Dec. 2, 2021 show. TRE show management also said in an emailed release that they were "moving forward with plans for a Spring 2021 event" that would allow for conducting business "in a safe and produc- tive way." No further details were shared. l 3 Questions with Wolverine's Barry McGeough O ver Barry McGeough's career, he's spent a lot of time looking forward. In June, McGeough was named Global VP of Advanced Concepts and Innovation at Rockford, MI-based Wolverine World Wide, a position that will let him touch all 12 of the companies owned and licensed brands, which include Merrell, Wolverine, Saucony, Keds and Chaco, among others. It's a step back into famil- iar categories for McGeough, who's overseen product and innovation at outdoor stalwarts including The North Face and Berghaus, and at PVH Corp., where he launched Speedo footwear and was later VP of the firm's forward looking PVH Innovation Next division. Here, McGeough discusses his new role, potential technologies and where he looks for innovation. What will you be charged with in your new role? We differentiate between "advanced technology" and "innovation." Advanced technology is incremental: taking something you have currently and making it a little bit better. But if you really want to push the boat much farther off the pier, then you start to look at these bigger ideas coming from adjacent industries. Will you be focused on particular brands to start? Innovation will have to be brand agnostic, especially if we'd like to do platform technology that all brands could use. We're going to be looking at domains — the main two are material and digital transformation. [With] digital transformation, we will focus on two areas: connected product and connected experience. On the materials side, we will focus on performance. And on the other side, no one wants anything that isn't good for planet earth. The green side whether it's green chemistry or green product, it's going to be really, really key. Are there technologies you'll be exploring imme- diately? We refer to these as exponential technologies, these ideas that are happening a lot further out into the event horizon. Let's take 5G, for instance: It's not here [everywhere] yet, but we know that it will fuel new business opportunities, new business-to-consumer expectations that we will have to be aware of. How does that affect consumer expectations and behaviors that are novel to us? We are starting to look at 3-D apparel, 3-D footwear visualization and augmented reality. For instance, we just launched 49 styles at the Sperry site where you have the option to view them in 3-D. —By Bob McGee INTERVIEW "Innovation will have to be brand agnostic, especially if we'd like to do platform technology that all brands could use."

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