The national and regional winter show season has finally come to an end, giving sales managers and reps a much-needed breather before the next round of sales meetings begins. With SIA shifting its show schedule four years ago, many of the winter regional shows are still adjusting to the timing, but the pieces of the puzzle are slowly falling into place.
“Were still adjusting,” David Ingemie, president of SIA told BOSS. “When we changed the dates of SIA, we said that it would be a three to five year transition, and we are now in our fourth year, but everything is coming together. On the positive side, all four buying groups now have a show at SIA and this represents significant savings to many retailers.”
The regional shows are certainly feeling the impact of these changes, with several scheduling glitches, and compressed schedules. This, combined with the bizarre weather patterns of this past season, affected attendance for some, while other found ways to improve.
Morgan Turner, president of the Western Winter Sports Reps Association said “The business being done in the western U.S. has definitely experienced a noticeable change in the show cycle since SIA moved into its current January time slot. WWSRA has worked hard to address these changes this year by looking to its membership to shape and guide the future direction of the shows.”
The WWSRA managed to adapt to these scheduling changes, and pulled off their shows with few glitches. The organization also used some creative marketing and partnership programs to bring more life into the on-snow demos. “The regional demos and writing shows were smooth overall this year and with the addition of some new retail programs the shows saw more energy and enthusiasm surrounding the events than in previous years,” said Turner.
Most reports coming out of the Midwest Winter Sports Reps Association indicate that this region did not fare quite as well, mainly due to the quirky weather. However, Bruce Marsh, MWSRA president told BOSS that booth sales were up and retailer attendance matched the previous year.
The Mid-Atlantic region saw some success with new venues – going into its second year at the Allentown, P.A. show, and its inaugural year with the Winter Sports Mart apparel show. The Allentown venue in particular seems to be quite successful, with more energy than many of the other regional shows. Klaus Zimmerman, president of the Eastern Winter Sports Reps Association said “The new Winter Sports Mart, primarily a soft goods preview, was a huge success attracting over 80 shops. This show is expected to grow in 2006 With one year under our belt at the Allentown venue, we were able to fine tune this show, providing better services as well as an improved floor plan. Retailers as well as reps were excited to be back in Allentown.”
Like most of the rep groups, timing is still an issue for EWSRA. “The timing of this year's show the last week in February did create challenges for our retailers as the Holiday week (George Washingtons Birthday week) fell into our time slot,” said Zimmerman.
“The EWSRA Board of Directors as well as the Lehigh Valley management team has worked hard to secure non-holiday dates for 2006,” Zimmerman continued. “Our 2006 dates will change slightly, opening on Sunday, February 26th and closing Wednesday, March 1st. This will allow retailers the opportunity to get through the holiday week before finalizing their order writing at our regional show.”
The Southeast experienced a late start to winter, just like the Pacific Northwest and the Northeast, which caused some retailers to become more conservative. However, the only real glitch in the regions show schedule was due to timing and not economics.
Keith Bowen, president of the Southeastern Winter Reps Association said “With the late arrival of winter this year, the buy-sell cycle was a challenge for both reps and retailers alike. The on-snow show at Snowshoe, W.Va. was down slightly in attendance due to the overlap with the Stratton on-snow event, but the weather and conditions were the best seen in a number of years.” The regions booth shows were both successful with the Greenville, S.C. venue drawing more people than ever before thanks to a successful collaboration with EORA.
“The first booth show was held at a new venue in Chantilly, VA, and for those attending, was met with approval. Here again attendance was down slightly due to the challenging compression of the show schedule that allowed for only a two day show,” said Bowen. “The third show, servicing the southern portion of our area was held in Greenville, S.C. in conjunction with EORA, and here attendance increased from last year.”
Some surprises emerged at the Greenville show as well, mainly from the large number of corporate personnel in attendance at the show. While most regional show booths are usually manned exclusively by sales reps, over 55 people from various corporate headquarters were in attendance. After giving line presentations every hour on-the-hour at SIA, Jason Levinthol, founder of Line Skis, was able to give a few more presentations to retailers at the EORA show. Dave Ellingson, sales director at Cloudveil, told BOSS that the combination of ski and outdoor retailers attending makes the Greenville show extremely important for his company.
“It has become a very important show,” said Andy Howe, VP of business development at White Sierra. “It is the last bastion of independents. There are very few regions that have this many independent retailers.”
With the industry committed to the “See It” (at SIA), “Try It” (at the demo), “Buy It” (at the regional show) selling cycle, it seems that the last step is to hammer out a few of the details, mainly in scheduling, in order for the show season to be even more successful.
