sportstyle

sportstylemag.com • sportstyle January/February 2023 • 21 Coming off a few years where people changed a lot of their business practices, often with more virtual and less face-to- face interaction, what do you see the role of trade shows being? Particularly your show. How do you view OR as far as what it means to the industry now? "I think things are different now. But what we hear consistently across the board is that there is a desire — from brands, retailers and others — for a national show. One of the things that Outdoor Retailer is really great at is it's about what's new. It's about emergence. It's about discovery. We do that better than anybody. We saw some of that at Outdoor Retailer in January. At the show's innovation awards, you take a brand like Opolis, the founder figured out how to make ski goggles from the plastic bottles that he was pulling out of the water! You get discovered at OR for things like that. at really inspires entrepreneurs and young people to get into this business and to do something really cool. It's hard to find that at other events. We think we are the best platform to have a national event. I don't think that there is an appetite from a lot of brands who may have had that 6,600 square foot booth back in 2017, to do that again. It's fair to say they may not feel the need to have an activation that big going forward, and that's fine. We don't expect people to do that. But we do hope to get as many brands in as we can, without question. Some of the new and emerging brands — which are easier to find at Outdoor Retailer — they do better when the broader industry comes together with some of these bigger brands participating. Everyone can get more eyeballs on what they're doing. We certainly like that." A lot of vendors and retailers have turned to smaller buying shows or regional outdoor trade shows. And other trade shows have carved out some space for outdoor as well. Do you think there is room in the outdoor marketplace for all of these trade events? "From the retailer standpoint, the calendar is not super-efficient right now for their time. ere are a lot of these regional events which are strictly commerce focused and they're having some success doing what they're doing. But what we hear from retailers is that there's too much on the calendar. And I have heard this from some brands: I think Outdoor Retailer has a role to try to bring a lot of this together and certainly we want to create the most efficient marketplace we can for both buyer and seller." Is there anything else you would add? "With this marketplace and these audiences — the outdoor industry is not full of people who want to just sit behind a screen or stare at their phone. ey want to get out. ey want to be together, and we see us as being the place where that happens again. We like our calendar going forward. is is always going to be a puzzle to be working on — where does this piece go or where does that piece go. But we'll get the center of it right. Our goal is to serve the marketplace in the most efficient way that we can and to be that national gathering spot, especially on the Outdoor Retailer side. We're excited about what the future holds." n Outdoor Retailer is aiming to be the intersection of commerce and culture, content and conversation for outdoor and snow sports. OUTDOOR RETAILER UPCOMING CALENDAR SALT LAKE CITY OUTDOOR ADVENTURE X (consumer event) June 17-18, 2023 OUTDOOR RETAILER SUMMER SHOW June 19-21, 2023 OUTDOOR RETAILER WINTER SHOW November 14-16, 2023 THE SUMMIT BY OUTDOOR RETAILER (on-mountain experience + conference) January 23-24 + 25-26, 2024

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