Next Stop: Outdoor Retailer

Next week Kevin and I head to Salt Lake City for the Outdoor Retailer Winter Market -- one of the largest outdoor industry wholesale trade shows on earth.  The show draws 1600 exhibiting brands and roughly 60K attendees.  Industry folks show up to make wholesale purchases for retail outlets, source raw materials, and meet with industry partners.  For the gear lover it is a mecca.  

Our OR trips to date have been product development/material sourcing related.  That will change in the coming years as EVERGOODS plans on exhibiting at OR's Venture Out--a curated selection of brands at the forefront of the modern outdoor experience.

If you are curious why OR is such a draw check out the Outdoor Industry Association's 2016 Topline Participation report to get an idea of how many people engage in outdoor activities (OIA-Topline Report).  

A few facts from the report:

• In 2015 approximately 142.4 million Americans participated in at least 1 "outdoor activity"
• Totalling 11.7 billion outings
• 82.5 average outings per participant
• 52% are male and 48% are female (in 2011 was 56% male, 44% female)

Kevin and I will share more from our time at the show in the coming weeks.  As always we would love to hear your thoughts.

Jack and Kevin