BRICE WALLACE
Outdoor Retailer is putting an emphasis on “out.”
Show organizers recently announced that the twice-annual trade show soon will be out of Salt Lake City, and that Salt Lake City will be out of the bidding to host the show again — the latter stance running counter to what was said only days earlier.
In the end, both sides in the struggle refused to yield. Outdoor Retailer, in cooperation with the Outdoor Industry Association (OIA) and Grassroots Outdoor Alliance, had vowed to look elsewhere for a host city if Utah’s state and congressional officials stuck with their desire to get state control of federal lands in the state. Faced with what some people believed was an ultimatum, Gov. Gary Herbert rejected that plea, including sticking to his call for President Donald Trump to rescind the new Bears Ears National Monument designation, despite the potential loss of the OR shows and their annual $47 million economic impact.
Thus ends a two-decade relationship between the largest trade show of its type and a host area steeped in an outdoors culture and a multitude of recreational options for show attendees and the general public.
Only time will answer many lingering questions, including where and when the shows will move, and what Salt Lake City will do to compensate for the loss of such large gatherings and their spending power.
OR’s Summer and Winter markets have been at the Salt Palace Convention Center since 1996, with the exception of the 2002 Winter Market, when Salt Lake City hosted the Winter Olympics. January’s Winter Market had 25,000 attendees and more than 700,000 square feet of exhibit space. The most recent Winter Market had a $22 million economic impact, based on direct delegate spending. Last year’s Summer Market had an estimated $27 million economic impact. Estimates for the show’s first 20 years in Salt Lake City put the total economic impact at $565 million, as well as producing $52 million in city, county and state tax revenues.
Emerald Expositions produces the shows, and OIA is the events’ title sponsor.
When, or if, the shows ever return is anyone’s guess. On Feb. 6, when show organizers said they would seek proposals from other cities to host the shows after Salt Lake City’s current contract expires after the summer show in 2018, OR said it “will maintain its current contract in Salt Lake City through summer 2018.” But last week, OR said that “although we are contracted through 2018, we are considering all our options after Summer Market 2017.”
Shows in 2018 and beyond likewise have been the subject of mixed signals. The Feb. 6 statement quoted Marisa Nicholson, OR show director, saying, “we aren’t opposed to staying” in Salt Lake City, and Darrell Denny, executive vice president for Emerald Exposition’s Sports Group, said that Salt Lake City “will be among candidates to continue to be the host city.” But after meeting via conference call with Herbert, OR said it will not include Utah in the pending request for proposals process for future shows.
“Outdoor Retailer will not include the state of Utah in the RFP process for future show locations,” OR reiterated last week. However, it also left open the idea of returning at some point. “If the governor of Utah were to change his position to be more in line with the outdoor industry’s values, then perhaps we would be able to consider Utah as a location in the future,” OR said.
That latter comment might ease some of the bitterness expressed by both sides after the Herbert conference call.
“Unfortunately, what we heard from Gov. Herbert was more of the same,” OIA said in a statement after the call. “It is clear that the governor indeed has a different perspective on the protections of public lands from that of our members and the majority of Western state voters — both Republicans and Democrats — that’s bad for our American heritage, and it’s bad for our businesses. We are therefore continuing our search for a new home as soon as possible.”
Paul Edwards, Herbert’s deputy chief of staff, issued a statement calling the ban of Salt Lake City from bidding on future shows “offensive,” adding that it reflects “a gross ingratitude to a community that has embraced the Outdoor Retailer show, subsidizing its success and expansion through direct investment — let alone extraordinary hospitality.”
Edwards said the action “perpetuates the false narrative” that Utah is “somehow hostile” to public lands and that the Outdoor Industry Association’s decision-making was based on a political agenda “rather than reason or merit.”
Last week, Peter Corroon, Democrat Party chairman in Utah, and a few other Democrats were critical of the state’s position and the loss of show’s economic impact.
Lane Beattie, president and chief executive officer of the Salt Lake Chamber, took a more diplomatic posture, saying the chamber regrets the decision by OR to leave Utah for political reasons and calling for OR to “reconsider and give state leaders an opportunity to work more closely with them in our shared goal of protecting our lands.”
“We have been great partners for more than 20 years,” Beattie said. “Few can question the mutually beneficial relationship we have had.”
Meanwhile, an online petition effort — at https://secure.everyaction.com/mzkN5R7CmUGFhB7vfUO0Ww2 — also is seeking to retain the shows.
“Tell Gov. Herbert to eat humble pie for the sake of hundreds of Utah businesses, thousands of Utah clean jobs and to keep hundreds of millions of dollars in Utah,” the petition page states. In the petition section, it urges Herbert to “tell the Outdoor Retailers that you are sorry about the ‘don’t protect Bears Ears’ and ‘anti-Grand Escalante’ Resolution tirades. Governor, while there is time, tell the OR organizers and sponsors that the toothless Resolutions were a terrible mistake.”
OR has acknowledged that finding a new trade show site could be challenging. Large conventions typically are booked years in advance.
“Though we may wish it different, this is far from a snap of the fingers thing to make happen,” Nicholson said. “Convention centers and hotels are not sitting idle. In every instance at every potential venue, there are hurdles that have to be cleared and that simply cannot be done overnight.” She estimated that the proposal process itself will take 60-90 days.
Where might OR land? News reports indicate that officials in Colorado, Oregon and Montana are interested. OR said last week that there are “no forgone conclusions about our new location.”
In Colorado, Gov. John Hickenlooper has said his state would be a good option, and Conservation Colorado has begun a campaign pushing OR to move to that state. The campaign began by buying ads in Salt Lake City daily newspapers that said Colorado has “stronger beer,” “taller peaks,” “higher recreation” and “we love our public lands.” Another element will feature the organization “urging decision-makers in the outdoor industry to choose Colorado as the new location for the show based on the state’s long record of investing in and protecting national parks, monuments, forests and other public lands,” the organization said.
“There’s no better place than Colorado when it comes to protection and stewardship of our public lands,” said Pete Maysmith, Conservation Colorado’s executive director. “From embracing our newest national monuments, to being the first state to establish a holiday to celebrate our lands, to soundly defeating eight bills in our state legislature that would have turned our lands over to private interests, we fully recognize the myriad benefits that public lands bring to our state and to the nation.”
In announcing its move out of Utah, OR said that the outdoor recreation economy in Utah adds more than $12 billion in direct spending, supports 122,000 jobs in the state that pay $3.6 billion in salaries and wages, and contributes more than $856 million in state and local tax revenue every year. “We believe these numbers and our values will be of great interest to other states in West,” OIA’s Amy Roberts said.
OR organizers were not alone in their belief that Utah’s state and federal officials are taking a bad stance on Utah’s federal lands, which they believe would be open to energy development and others uses if turned over to the state.
The Wilderness Society, a conservation organization, commended the outdoor recreation industry action “for making this important decision to stand by our nation’s public lands and with the millions of Americans who recreate on them.”
“The state of Utah’s fervent opposition to protecting the Bears Ears area of Utah has just cost its economy $45 million,” said a statement from the Western Values Project. “Its leaders have brought the state to this point through their extreme anti-government positions on nationally held public lands.”