Outdoor Retailer, the major showcase in the United States for the outdoor gear industry, will move back to Utah in 2023 despite objections from many retailers.
“After much deliberation and input from all sides, we’ve decided the best move for Outdoor Retailer is to return to our basecamp,” Outdoor Retailer said March 23 on its website. “We’re heading back to Salt Lake City and County to the place we grew up and where our industry matured into the dynamic and powerful community it is today.”
But the Conservation Alliance and 24 of its outdoor industry members, which said in February they would boycott the show if it moved to Utah, repeated their objection after OR’s announcement.
“Our position remains firm—we stand with the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition and in support of our public lands,” the Conservation Alliance said in a statement. “We will not support or attend a trade show event in Utah so long as its elected officials continue attacks on national monuments and public lands protections, doing so would undermine our organizational mission and values.”
The standoff reprises a 2017 battle to move Outdoor Retailer from Salt Lake City to Denver, Colorado, because of Utah’s efforts to reduce the size of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments. The show had been in Salt Lake City for 20 years.
Outdoor Retailer said it is committed to addressing the concerns about Utah’s stance on environmental causes.
“Salt Lake City and County is our hometown, and we’re going back with a commitment to effecting meaningful change,” Outdoor Retailer said. “It would be wrong for us to leave the way we did and simply go back as if nothing happened. In reality, leaving after 2017 has not brought the change we had hoped for, so we will push back, not pull back. We firmly believe that staying engaged and collectively contributing to the ongoing discussion, no matter how difficult, is far more constructive.”
Outdoor Retailer said that over the next three years it would fund programs to support outdoor recreation and protect public lands in Utah, and partner with businesses, government leaders, public lands and recreation leaders, and industry stakeholders to protect natural and cultural spaces in Utah.
REI is one of the outdoor gear companies opposed to moving Outdoor Retailer to Utah.
“In 2017, REI Co-op strongly supported the decision to move the outdoor industry trade show out of Utah when the state’s leadership refused to protect duly designated national monuments and natural treasures,” Ben Steele, Executive Vice President, Chief Customer Officer, REI Co-op, said in a statement released by the Conservation Alliance in February. “Although those protections have since been restored by President Biden, Utah’s leaders are again aiming to undermine those monuments and their protections. As a result, REI will not participate in any OR trade show in the state—nor will we send members of our merchandising or other co-op teams—so long as Utah persists in attacking our public lands and the laws that protect them.”
The summer 2022 Outdoor Retailer show is the last one under contract with Denver. Salt Lake City will be the new home for the winter and summer shows from 2023 to 2025.
The Conservation Alliance and the Outdoor Alliance, which represent more than 270 businesses and 10 national outdoor advocacy organizations, sent a letter to Utah Gov. Spencer Cox in January calling on him to end efforts that threaten public lands. “Launching an assault on our industry’s most closely held values while concurrently lobbying to bring our tradeshow back to Utah is illogical and counterproductive,” the letter said..
The Conservation Alliance, made up of outdoor industry companies that include Patagonia, REI, and The North Face, says it supports the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition and its efforts to protect ancestral and cultural Bears Ears lands in southern Utah.
Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante were reduced in size by former President Donald Trump, and restored to their original designation by President Joe Biden shorty after he took office in 2021.
The annual Outdoor Retailer shows are a gathering of industry brands, retailers, brand reps, designers, suppliers, and outdoor writers.
Companies calling on Outdoor Retailer to support tribes and public lands are REI Co-op, Patagonia, The North Face, Public Lands, KEEN Footwear, Oboz Footwear, Kelty, Sierra Designs, Peak Design, Toad&Co, SCARPA, MiiR, NEMO Equipment, Backpacker’s Pantry, Smartwool, Therm-a-Rest, MSR, Timberland, Helinox USA, GU Energy Labs, La Sportiva, Alpacka Raft, Icebreaker, Arc’teryx, Nomadix, LifeStraw, Backbone Media, GRAYL, TripOutside, and Bergreen Photography.
