Outdoor Retailer show director Marisa Nicholson explains why the show is returning to Utah — despite lingering doubt and unrest among some of the industry’s biggest brands.
In March, show organizers for the twice-annual Outdoor Retailer (OR) event — the industry’s largest trade show and gathering place — made big waves, announcing its decision to leave Denver.
The move took many by surprise, and not just because Colorado has become the de facto headquarters for so many outdoor businesses (GearJunkie included). Rather, because the show revealed its new home would be its old home: Salt Lake City.
For those outside the industry, OR made Utah its home base for more than 20 years. But that cozy relationship crumbled in 2017 when then-Governor Gary Herbert, behind the blessing of a regulatory-averse Trump administration, dismantled Obama-era public lands protections around two newly minted national monuments: Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante.
In response, the industry’s biggest and most recognizable brands — including Patagonia, REI, and The North Face — vowed to boycott the event, urging the show’s organizers to relocate OR somewhere with greater social and political alignment. The rest was history … until now.
We sat down with the show’s director and vice president, Marisa Nicholson, to understand why and how Utah won back Outdoor Retailer. And more importantly, to see if the issues that spurred the protests that forced the show to leave have been addressed.
Moving Back to Utah: Q&A With Outdoor Retailer
GearJunkie: What was behind this decision to move back to Utah, and were those factors from 2017 addressed?
Nicholson: In May of last year, we started surveying our customers around timing and future location — something we typically did even in Utah when our contract was about 18 months out from expiring — to get a better understanding and make sure that we were in the right time frame, and continuing to serve the market needs.
We ultimately gathered a lot of feedback from customers around the fact that we haven’t really been able to recreate the demo that we had been able to do previously [in Utah], and people thought that was important.
The overall cost has gone up, and the cost of travel was more in Denver than it had been in Salt Lake City. [And] the timing was critical, especially with the supply chain and issues the pandemic had an impact on.
Based on all of that information, we essentially put together a survey and put Utah back on there. We had a lot of customers continue to say they felt the show should be in Utah.
When we got our survey results back, we had ongoing conversations to ensure the quality of information we got. We were able to follow up with more qualitative data by having one-on-one conversations with both brands and retailers, getting their feedback to make sure we aligned with what the industry wanted for the timing of the show, location of the show, and purpose of the show.
Can you share the results of the survey?
Denver and Salt Lake City had always been the top two locations that our industry indicated as preferred locations.
Ultimately, Salt Lake City was the preferred location across the community. And in addition to that, the timing of the show was a critical factor. The dates we were able to secure in Denver around the January show were much later than what our industry indicated they needed.
Is it fair to say that the locations between Denver and Salt Lake City were pretty close in the survey, and the timing was more the deciding factor?
I would say that. Denver [has] been a great host to us for the last 5 years, but I would say the dates were a deciding factor — and the demo aspect is also a pretty critical factor in it.
Was Utah able to address the concerns that initially motivated OR to leave Salt Lake City?
In the conversations we’ve had with Mayor Mendenhall and Mayor Wilson [of Utah], as well as different officials [including] Pitt Grewe of the outdoor recreation committee, we understood that what they value and what they’re supporting aligns very closely with what our industry wants and needs.
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