The Outdoor Industry Association is divorcing the Outdoor Retailer trade shows after a 30-year partnership.
The national trade association with more than 4,000 outdoor industry members — manufacturers, suppliers, sales reps and retailers — has ended its exclusive partnership with Emerald Expositions, the trade show operator that owns the biannual Outdoor Retailer trade shows. The separation comes as the outdoor industry matures into a political and economic force and the role of once-essential trade show gatherings evolves.
Kent Ebersole, who took the reins at Boulder-based OIA in 2022, just as Outdoor Retailer decamped from its five-year home in Denver for Salt Lake City, said his group appreciates the “valuable opportunities” Outdoor Retailer provided for OIA members.
“This next chapter enables our organizations to work to unify our industry, foster growth and deep community engagement,” Ebersole said in a statement announcing the split.
Since taking over at OIA, Ebersole has orchestrated a significant shift in the association’s business strategy. For decades, OIA relied heavily on royalty payments from Outdoor Retailer trade show business, with revenue from the trade shows accounting for more than 70% of the association’s annual income. A review of the nonprofit association’s tax filings shows more than a decade of annual trade show revenue between $4.1 million and $5.2 million.
When trade shows collapsed during the pandemic, that annual revenue for OIA fell to $642,000 in 2021 and never recovered, reaching only $1.69 million in 2022.
But OIA collected a record $3.1 million from membership dues in 2022 and posted all-time high annual revenue of $8.59 million in 2022, marking a strategic maneuver away from trade show money.
Meanwhile Emerald Expositions has been struggling. The company, which hosts 140 trade show events a year, has slowly been crawling out of the hole created by the pandemic. In 2018, as the company moved Outdoor Retailer to Denver from its longtime home in Salt Lake City, the company’s stock traded for more than $20 a share, with annual revenues hitting $381 million. The company’s stock now trades around $5 a share and revenues reached $383 million in 2023 after cratering in 2020 and 2021.
Face-to-face sales meetings less crucial today
The ground is shifting for the outdoor industry. Where trade shows fit in the maturing industry’s landscape remains to be seen as manufacturers and retailers move beyond the need for traditional face-to-face meetings to conduct business.
The most recent Outdoor Retailer business-to-business trade shows in Salt Lake City have not rebounded to previous traffic levels, with fewer high-profile brands that once shaped the annual gatherings taking huge booths and hosting pricey parties. Denver and the Colorado outdoor recreation office last month launched the annual Outside Festival, which hopes to fill the hole left by Outdoor Retailer with music, art and education for businesses and consumers.
Since Emerald Expositions and Outdoor Retailer acquired the venerable Snow Show trade show from SnowSports Industries America, or SIA, in 2017 for $16.7 million, SIA has evolved into an educational resource for winter businesses. OIA now must similarly shape its future.
Outdoor policy, education and advocacy remain a crucial need for the $1.1 trillion recreation economy. The players in that economy are jostling for position.
The influential Outdoor Recreation Roundtable — led by former OIA policy boss Jessica Wahl Turner — is shepherding industry priorities in Washington, D.C. The Outdoor Recreation Roundtable is making huge gains with the passage of comprehensive recreation legislative packages.
There are now 23 state outdoor recreation offices. The 3,000-member Sports and Fitness Industry Association is emerging as a potent force. SIA is taking ownership of education work with winter businesses.
That leaves opportunities and challenges for OIA as it writes a new chapter without a role in the industry’s once-signature trade show. OIA’s research into participation trends remains a critical tool for outdoor policymakers, manufacturers and retailers. Its work promoting sustainability and diversity for outdoor businesses is equally important.
Ebersole spent two years working on the divorce from Emerald, which did not want to break the partnership. Now he can focus on the next steps. He’s rebuilding OIA’s government affairs and advocacy team, with a focus on working in areas underrepresented by the Outdoor Recreation Roundtable — which has a lot of motorized recreation members. (OIA’s 10-year head of government affairs, Rich Harper, just retired.)
“We will have a new advocacy team in a month and there are lanes that we care about where I think we can have more impact than (the Outdoor Recreation Roundtable),” Ebersole said in an interview with The Sun. “Our members are different from their members. There is space for both of us.”
Ebersole said OIA also plans to “double or even triple down” on data and analysis of trends in the outdoor recreation economy. OIA will remain in the events business, fostering growth of smaller business gatherings and educational work. The association plans to continue working with businesses to grow sustainable operations — lessening impacts through production and the supply chain — as well as helping business owners grow their operations. OIA also hopes to develop a broader outreach program to distribute its research and educational information.
“We have a lot of areas where we hope to grow,” Ebersole said. “We will be going where our members want to go.”