Partial victory: Winter Sports Market coming to Salt Lake City

By Brice Wallace

Trying to offset Utah’s loss of the twice-a-year Outdoor Retailer tradeshows, government officials have landed an influential outdoor recreation regional show for the next three years.

Armed with incentives from the state, Visit Salt Lake and Salt Lake County, the Winter Sports Market (WSM) tradeshow will move from Denver — where Outdoor Retailer now takes place — to the Salt Palace Convention Center starting Jan. 23-25, 2019. The annual show operated is by a pair of independent buying groups: Sports Specialists Ltd. (SSL) and Snowsports Merchandising Corp. (SMC).

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“Beginning in January 2019, Winter Sports Market will begin a three-year stay in its new home at the Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City, UT,” WSM said on its website. “SSL works with 17 Utah-based companies currently and saw that Utah could provide a vibrant new venue full of new opportunities.”

The Governor’s Office of Economic Development (GOED) board last week approved an Economic Opportunity Grant of $50,000 per year to lure the show to Utah. Visit Salt Lake will kick in $10,000 a year, while the county-owned Salt Palace will cut its meeting space cost from $77,410 to $20,000 per year.

Mel Lavitt, chairman of the GOED board’s incentives committee, said GOED’s action is a sign that “we are slowly going to win back the Outdoor Retailer shows from Denver. Their flag is at half-mast today.”

The 2018 WSM had 1,200 attendees, consisting of manufacturers and retailers, with orders placed there accounting for 30 percent of winter sports manufacturers’ annual sales. A total of 125 companies took booths or meeting rooms this year, including 17 Utah-based companies. The show featured 295 storefronts representing $500 million in retail sales and $40 million in sales taxes. Delegate spending totaled $2.1 million, and the Salt Lake City figure is expected to be at least $1 million per year.

For comparison, the twice-annual Outdoor Retailer trade shows in Salt Lake City had a nearly $50 million annual impact. OR’s Winter Market usually had about 25,000 attendees and a $22 million economic impact. The Summer Market usually had about a $27 million impact.

Tom Adams, director of GOED’s Office of Outdoor Recreation, told the board that having the WSM show in Utah will begin to repair the state’s image as the top state for outdoor shows and events.

SSL and SMC held their own trade shows in 1998, with SSL holding its show in conjunction with the larger Snow Industries of America (SIA) show in Las Vegas. The next year, SSL and SMC agreed on a co-hosted show, the Winter Sports Market. WSM typically has been in conjunction with the SIA show in Las Vegas, but moved to Denver and last year merged with Outdoor Retailer’s Winter Market.

Adams said Salt Lake City offered more-attractive dates for the show than Denver.

Formed in 1971, SSL is a marketing, purchasing and merchandising group in the ski, snowboard, outdoor lifestyle and casual furniture industries. It is owned by 61 corporate entities representing 162 retail businesses throughout the U.S. The privately held company, with main offices in Colorado and New York, represents $245 million in retail sales in 26 states, with the sales representing 10.3 percent of the nation’s ski-related sales.

SMC is a privately held corporation based in Massachusetts and is owned by 59 corporate entities representing 133 retail storefronts in 27 states. It represents $260 million in retail sales, or 11 percent of sales related to winter sports.

“They are the specialty retailers that you want to go to when you’re buying your outdoor equipment wherever you are in the country,” Adams said.

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