Joining Colorado, Montana and Oregon have expressed interest in hosting the Outdoor Retailer show.
Last Thursday, the Outdoor Industry Association said it hoped to find a new location for the Outdoor Retailer shows “as soon as possible” due to Utah’s stance on to public lands. The decision followed an unproductive meeting between Utah’s Governor Gary Herbert and outdoor industry executives. The group wanted the governor to reverse his call for President Trump to rescind the new Bears Ears National Monument.
The organizers plan to solicit proposals for 2018 and beyond. Outdoor Retailer’s contract with Salt Lake City is through summer 2018.
In Montana, a spokesperson for Governor Steve Bullock’s office told The Bozeman Daily Chronicle “Montana is a pretty good place for something like that,” and possible locations are being assessed.
Meanwhile, Linea Gagliano, director of global communications for Travel Oregon, told the Statesman Journal it plans to solicit Portland as the new spot for the show.
“We’re very interested in this — we feel like Portland is the perfect spot,” Gagliano said. “We already have tons of outdoor retailers in town, we’ve got a huge new hotel coming in next to the convention center and we have great access to the outdoors.
Colorado’s Governor John Hickenlooper also began pushing for his state as a candidate to replace Utah in late January. In mid-February, a Colorado land conservation group, Conservation Colorado, ran ads in The Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret News calling for the Outdoor Retailer show to come to Denver.
“We have stronger beer. We have taller peaks. We haveve higher recreation. But most of all, we love our public lands,” the ad said.
The last time the bi-annual Outdoor Retailer trade show, which are owned by Emerald Expositions, went looking for a new home, in 2012, the five final candidates for the show were: Anaheim, CA; Denver; Las Vegas; Orlando, FL; and Salt Lake City.
The show attracts some 50,000 visitors and an estimated $45 million a year to Salt Lake City, where it has been a fixture at the city’s Salt Palace Convention Center for two decades.
