Getting Out is Not Enough

Editor’s Note: An abridged version of this opinion piece was published in the Colorado Sun. Two dogs, now gone, showed me how to consider the outdoors. Belle appreciated the landscape as a whole. She stopped, not just at the summit, but to tend to sounds […]

Necessary Change: Simple, Not Easy

Each year on behalf of Cayuse Communications and the Best Horse Practices Summit, I travel to Denver for the Outdoor Retailer (OR), an enormous schoomze-fest at the Colorado Convention Center. It’s run by the Outdoor Industry Association (OIA), a 4,000-member trade group for outdoor recreation, […]

A Visit to the OR

Last week, we traveled to the Outdoor Retailer at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver. It’s the outdoor industry’s largest event for buyers, media, and others to gather, place orders, and show off new products. More importantly, it’s an opportunity for the outdoor recreational community […]

Riders: how long will we be relevant?

Like any other niche community, us horse owners and riders know what we like. We gravitate to anyone or anything that speaks our language. We can spot each other a mile away. In my neck of the woods, the ‘I get horseback’ uniform is: Long, […]

Report from the Outdoor Retailer – What We Liked

Imagine you’re at a mall on the weekend before Christmas and all the crowds around you are fit, driven, and over-caffeinated. That’s pretty much the scene at the Outdoor Retailer at the Salt Palace convention center. Thousands of vendors and tens of thousands of buyers, […]

Outdoor Retailer Bestuvs

OR Swan Song in Salt Lake

Last month, we headed to the Outdoor Retailer, held for the last time at the Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City. Why was this the final episode of a decades-long run, drawing tens of thousands to Utah and generating millions of dollars for […]

Hasta La Vista, Utah

The Outdoor Retailer, the multi-million dollar exposition force which lived in Salt Lake City for 21 years, has pulled up stakes and is headed to neighboring Colorado. Beginning in January, 2018, the OR will be hosted by Denver. Read this open letter to Utah from […]

Tempest Williams stirs it up

The Outdoor Retailer is all about the selly-selly-sell. Thousands of outdoor gear exhibitors tout their latest socks, stoves, skis, shoes, snowshoes, and shovels in the effort to wow thousands of buyers (or not). Increasingly, however, it’s also about organizing and affirming the outdoor industry’s growing […]

Tempest Williams wows OR crowd