Outdoor retailer party 10% bigger

Editor’s note: Staff writer Beth Potter is in Salt Lake City covering the Outdoor Retailer Summer Market.

SALT LAKE CITY – It’s a 24,000-person-or-so party that’s 10 percent bigger this year than last.

Representatives from about 80 companies in and around Boulder and Broomfield counties are in Salt Lake City this week to do deals at the Outdoor Retailer Summer Market. It’s sponsored by the Outdoor Industry Association, a Boulder-based industry trade group.

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With the 10 percent growth in the show this year over last, trade group representatives worked with the Economic Development Corporation of Utah in the last couple of months to get a new “pavilion” for 150 new brands, said Frank Hugelmeyer, chief executive officer of the Outdoor Industry Association. A huge, white tent over a nearby parking lot is the result.

“It’s an amazing feat in this economy,” Hugelmeyer said. “With this economy, American people are deciding what’s important. Fortunately, we’ve made the list.”

The actual summer show is expected to pump about $25 million into the Utah economy, between hotel rooms, restaurants, transportation and shopping. To celebrate, representatives from the Economic Development Corporation of Utah hosted the OIA for dinner on Wednesday night, Hugelmeyer said. OIA also holds an annual Outdoor Retailer winter show in Salt Lake City.

Hugelmeyer arrived in Utah two days early to tour facilities in an attempt to find more space for the trade show in the future. The group has contracted with Salt Lake City to run the show through 2014 in its current location at the Salt Palace Convention Center, he said.

“We’re assessing our future opportunities,” Hugelmeyer said. “It’s a matter of finding contiguous space to fit the show.”

The show includes an actual trade fair with booths set up by companies attending, and a wide variety of outdoor events and parties, including a three-day slackline competition put on by Gibbon Slacklines of Boulder. “Slacklining” is similar to tightrope walking, but it’s close to the ground. Climbing walls and “flash mob” events and a bike valet offering bikes to pedal around town are expected to keep the free-wheeling show from getting boring.

Where the show is held in the future could be important to both where the Outdoor Industry Association headquarters is located as well as where other outdoor companies locate, according to many in the industry. Both Salt Lake City and Portland, Oregon, officials have courted the industry group in recent months, Hugelmeyer and others in the group have said.

Giving some indication as to where at least one segment of the industry is headed, Hugelmeyer said his group is partnering with MBA students in the Leeds Outdoor Industry Club in Boulder to create a vision for a global center for outdoor recreation. The club is part of the University of Colorado’s Leeds School of Business.

The “global center” concept comes from the “Olympic center” concept created in Lausanne, Switzerland, for Olympics-related groups, Hugelmeyer said. OIA has a similar opportunity to create a hub for the outdoor industry, he said.

“We want to use the connections of our local assets to socialize the concept,” Hugelmeyer said. “We’re crafting a vision.”

Outdoor Retailer fast facts:

24,000 people estimated to be attending.

$25 million estimated to be pumped into the economy during the week. Actual show runs from Wednesday, Aug. 3 to Sunday, Aug. 7.

625 exhibitors giving away free stuff, according to the Outdoor Retailer Daily, a glossy magazine put out just for the trade show.