Web site links outfitters, destinations
Posted on Monday, February 10 2003
Go Paddle 4 Fun, a limited liability company in Butler, Ky., created to promote paddlesports recreation, recently established a Web site to get more people on the water. On the Web at www.gopaddle.com, the site includes an international directory of outfitters and paddling destinations. While the main objective is to attract new paddlers to canoeing, kayaking and rafting, a key emphasis is to give those already acquainted with the sport a quick and easy way to locate outfitters and paddlesport providers in any location they wish to paddle. Outfitters who subscribe to the site will receive Go Paddle 4 Fun’s promotional efforts, which include driving Internet traffic of non-paddlers to www.gopaddle.com. The site will also be promoted in both outdoor literature and general audience magazines, newspapers and other publications.
Attendance up at Winter OR
Posted on Monday, February 10 2003
Bringing the Winter Outdoor Retailer Market Show back to Salt Lake City helped increase attendance by 25 percent over the previous year, when the show was held in Anaheim, Calif. Total attendance was marked at nearly 13,700; exhibiting companies at 650; retail stores at nearly 2,270; and buyers just shy of 4,400. While attendance was up, total numbers were still 15 percent lower than those at Winter OR 2001. But with the SIA Show being held in nearby Las Vegas just prior, the numbers show optimism within the industry, according to Peter Devin, OR’s trade show director. Noting the increase from last year, Devin says numbers on “both sides of the aisle were appropriate and reflective” of the outdoor specialty marketplace.
“There were definitely more people there than I thought there’d be,” says Brad Johnson, co-owner of Steamboat Springs, Colo’s Big Agnes.
However, Johnson and his business partner Bill Gamber noted that the show’s attendance may have been too low to warrant a four-day show, saying that the winter show could be just as affective in a three-day period.