Superstars of Outdoor Retailer

I’m not a big fan of air travel, but for retail junkies like me who get the privilege of attending industry trade shows such as Interbike in fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada and Outdoor Retailer in scrupulous Salt Lake City, Utah, it is a necessary evil. I understand that life isn’t always a day at the beach, so when I’m flying coach wedged between a loud passenger with a long story and a large passenger with a pointy elbow, I know that I just have to suck it up. To better deal with the inevitable unpleasantness, I head to the nearest airport bar before boarding and chase a Dramamine tablet with three beers. This works great for eliminating motion sickness, which I am prone to, as well as blacking out a good chunk of the ride, assuming I make it to my seat.

With a Dramamine tablet and three beers in my system, I was on a plane this past January with two of my favorite fellow coworkers, Bart and Phlip. We were flying to the Outdoor Retailer Winter Market in glorious Salt Lake City, Utah, a place so glorious, the beer doesn’t need to be any stronger than 3.2% ABV and the urban sprawl and brown layer of smog hovering in the valley doesn’t need to get anyone down. We went out there for four days of very hard work and came back with a vast amount of knowledge and wisdom that is paramount to the ongoing prosperity of our business. Usually the boss is with us, but this year he couldn’t come along, which was a shame and we missed his company greatly. Fortunately however, his credit card did come along, so we were reminded of him every time we used it. It suffices to say and I’m sure it warms his heart to know that we were reminded of him quite often.

The first day of very hard work was the On Snow Demo at Solitude Mountain where overnight, fifteen inches of fresh Wasatch powder had fallen making it ideal for the very hard work of testing multiple pairs of brand new tele skis. Unfortunately we don’t sell a lot of brand new tele skis to our customers anymore, but it is still important for us to test them so that when we are selling a pair of ski socks to our customers, and we are asked how well they perform when skiing in fresh Wasatch powder on a brand new pair of tele skis, we’ll be able to provide a knowledgeable answer. Forming the necessary knowledge required to provide a knowledgeable answer to questions such as these doesn’t come easy, so we had no choice but to take many runs on many different pairs of skis, which, as you can imagine, is very hard work. So hard in fact, that by mid afternoon, my legs were so tired that I was unable to ski another run and by the following morning, my back was so stiff, I was unable to put on my socks without an epic struggle. That morning, my feet had never seemed so far away from my hands. Reaching them to slip on my socks felt like standing on my tiptoes with my arm fully extended, fishing for a spare key hidden on a tall shelf.

Bart and Phlip, who worked even harder at the demo than I did and skied until the lifts closed, mentioned that the disgraceful state of my body after the demo day may have had something to do with my current lack of fitness. I disagreed, declaring that is was completely due to my current lack of fitness. I hadn’t managed to squeeze in a lot of epic powder days before the trip and on top of that, I’m not 36 anymore. But, as stiff and sore as I was, there was no time for whining as there was a lot more hard work ahead at the show which continued for another three full days.

If you’ve never been to an outdoor industry trade show, imagine hundreds of vendors with elaborate booths displaying their amazing products while similar looking outdoorsy folks stream in and out. Imagine 80’s extreme skiing legend Glen Plake, with his signature Mohawk standing tall, schmoozing. Imagine the Hot Chilly’s long underwear model strutting back and forth on a short catwalk. Imagine a dude cruising around the show floor on small boards with two wheels, called Freeline skates, under each foot. Image me trying out Freeline skates and failing miserably, tweaking my sore back, and being told by the Freeline skate dude that the Hot Chilly’s long underwear model was a natural at it. Imagine a guy wearing an abominable snowman suit, a lousy cover band playing current pop hits, a PR rep with a microphone, a long line of dealers leading to a keg of beer, and a dealer frantically pulling pennies one at a time out of a fish tank full of ice water in hopes of winning a sleeping bag.

Imagine Bart, Phlip and I in this scene, with a clear mission of gathering vast amounts of knowledge and wisdom, walking from one end of the show floor to the other, making appointments and meeting appointments, discussing sales strategies with sales reps, product flaws with product engineers, marketing ideas with marketing directors, all the while searching for free beer. It is very hard work, and the boss would be happy to know that we didn’t slack off that much despite his absence. When it was all over, I was so exhausted from all the hard work at the show, and so sore and stiff from all the hard work at the demo, that when I got to the airport bar, I only needed to chase my Dramamine tablet with two beers. And as a gesture to the boss of my appreciation and understanding of the significant expense of sending all of us to the show, I bought the two beers with my own credit card.