Emerald Holding, Inc. reported it had acquired all of the assets of Lodestone Events, producers of the Overland Expo series of vehicle-based, adventure travel consumer shows.
Emerald hosts over 140 yearly events across multiple industries. In the outdoor lifestyle space, venues include Outdoor Retailer, Surf Expo, The Sports Licensing & Tailgate Show, Impressions, Swim Collective, and Active Collective.
The acquisition represents Emerald’s expansion into the business-to-consumer event space.
All Lodestone employees will become part of Emerald, with its founders, Lindsay Hubley and Jessica Kirchner, joining the company’s management team. They will continue to lead the Overland Expo series.
Loadstone employees will also oversee Emerald’s previously announced Outdoor Adventure X show in June at Snowbasin Resort in Huntsville, UT, preceding Outdoor Retailer’s summer show in Salt Lake City.
“Formally entering the B2C event space is paramount to Emerald’s corporate strategy of expanding into new and high-growth markets to accelerate top-line growth and unlock significant value for shareholders,” said Hervé Sedky, president and CEO of Emerald. “Adding a best-in-class consumer event series like Overland Expo demonstrates our successful implementation of this strategy and provides Emerald with talented leaders in this space, who together will enable us to continue to advance Emerald’s core services of live event connections, content, and commerce.
“Emerald and Lodestone Events have been working together for the past year to bring Outdoor Adventure X to market, and we look forward to building on this collaboration and creating even greater value for the entire outdoor industry ecosystem, from manufacturer to retailer to consumer,” Sedky added.
