Immersion Research 2010

Its that time of year again- the summer Outdoor Retailer show. For those of you not familiar with the cycle of the “Outdoor” industry, there is a separate calendar for the people who buy, sell and make outdoor gear, and the OR summer show, which occurs every August in Salt Lake City, is New Year’s day- or perhaps more accurately a tribal, 4 day celebration that serves as a ritual to please the gods of consumerism for the upcoming year.

Starting this Monday, Manufacturers from almost every aspect of the outdoor biz- everyone from Patagonia to The North Face to Mountain Hardware to Thermarest to Teva to Liquidlogic and even to little ole’ IR- will begin to converge on the Salt Palace and begin the annual ritual of booth-building, partying (albeit on low-alcohol beer- a specialty in Utah), shmozing and for us easterners, dealing the general discomfort brought on by zero humidity, and the huge, crumbling boogers that come with the transition . By Friday AM, when the Salt Palace doors open to retailers from all over the world, there will be literally 100’s of booths set up in what could be described as a hyper air-conditioned Land of Oz for gear freaks.

For the next four days, retailers will have a chance to look at the 2009 products of all of the manufacturers they might be interested in carrying in their store, and start to formulate a purchasing plan. Immediately following the show, retailers enter what’s called the “preseason ordering time”, during which the retailers can place an order with the manufacturer for next year’s goods, and receive a discount. The retailers don’t have to take the goods until the spring, or even later, they just need to tell the manufacturer what they need to give the manufacturer an idea of quantities, and time to make the stuff. The deadline for preseason orders for most manufacturers is around October.

There are actually two OR shows- a winter show and a summer show- and as such, the summer show is based around warm weather sports- hiking, fishing, camping, climbing, apparel and paddlesports. IR has been attending the show for almost 10 years, and over those years, we have been able to witness the ebb and flow of the summer outdoor economy as shown in the size and sheer opulance of the booths and the various other “collateral marketing” efforts. The companies and market segments flush with cash- Patagionia or Oakely sunglasses for instance- have enormous booths with costs that approach $100,000, and often throw open bar parties in rented-out clubs, featuring film premieres, VIP rooms, and the tanned and awkwardly dressed pro athletes that seem to gravitate to the show every year in search of another year-long all expenses paid vacation.

When we first started attending the show in the late 90’s paddlesports- particularly whitewater kayaking- was a sport who’s star was on the rise. We had the aforementioned parties, film premieres and athletes in spades. It was a wild and heady time when we all expected to be as big as snowboarding in 10 years, and many of us spent like it was a sure thing. Nowadays, however, things have seemed to cooled down quite a bit. After 7 years of almost zero growth, most kayaking companies have taken a distinctively more subdued marketing approach. In our case, this means that after we retired our 5 year-old booth last summer, instead of hiring a company to make a new booth for us (which could cost over 10 grand), we opted to make it ourselves, and drive it out. Starting with this post, I will post a somewhat regular update our progress west, and the show that follows.

First, though, Our booth:

This was designed and built by Jess Whittemore, who when addressed with the challenge of making a light weight booth that was strong enough to withstand the rigors of frantic set-up deadlines and repeated set-ups and tear-downs, decided to make it out of Kevlar and Carbon. To make sure it all fit together (and that we would know how to re-assemble it) we put the whole thing together in the second floor of the factory.

On sunday, we will break this down, pack it into a box trailer, and Roger, Jon Harmon and I will start the drive out west.