SOAR Blog

If you attended Outdoor Retailer Winter Market this year, you know that it was a great show that epitomized the industry’s resilience and hope.  Many long-time exhibitors were there along side many new exhibitors launching their products OR.

Despite the huge amounts of preparation that goes into each OR show, SOAR, like the rest of the OR operations staff, doesn’t have time to rest on its laurels when the show is happening in the Salt Palace.

We start before day one managing the periphery of the show to make sure only qualified media get badges and that their press needs are me once they’re inside. We help journalists work around the show director’s very busy schedule and step in as spokespersons when needed. We get up at 4:30 a.m to coordinate early morning shows on the floor, with hair brushed and smiles on our faces. On occasion, we double as models for exhibitors’ product, feeling a little embarrassed and mostly excited when attendees point and ask “Weren’t you on T.V. this morning?” We get a little jealous when attendees ask us about the discounted lift tickets they can purchases with their OR badges, not sure of the next time we’ll be able to hit the slopes.

Though we don’t do as many laps around the show floor as most retailers, the 12-hour day catches up with us once it’s time to party with the industry. Still, we party on. The Woolrich Fashion show made us want to dance (we may have acted on that impulse) and industry’s enthusiasm over the Canada Goose Cup was super fun to watch. We talked to Pam Theodosakis about Prana’s hockey win the next morning as we prepped her to speak about Project OR on camera with a local TV studio.

Of course, between these appointments we are writing like crazy so we can keep media in the loop about the news of the show. We each manage to get away for a few moments, though, to admire amazing new products on the show floor, talk with exhibitors and see how the Project OR designs are developing.

Even though there is still snow still on the ground and in the mountains, we’re shifting our attention to Outdoor Retailer Summer Market, running August 2-3, 2010. Even more exciting times for SOAR and the outdoor industry are on the horizon.

Here’s to warmer weather and more hot products!

The outdoor industry is abuzz on Twitter, contributing comments, queries and suggestions to all participating manufacturers, buyers, retailers, media and advocacy groups in the 2010 Outdoor Retailer Winter Market through the show’s aggregate feed, ORWinter. Since SOAR launched Outdoor Retailer into the Twittersphere for the 2009 Winter Market, the outdoor industry has channeled much of its conversation through the platforms the show has provided. Attendees and exhibitors getting ready to travel to Salt Lake are using #ORWinter in their Tweets about the show to create dialogues and relationships before they even step foot into the Salt Palace. They can also follow ORShowLive to keep up with OR-specific event announcements that will help them make the most of their time at the show.

The ORWinter conversation will continue throughout the show as attendees Tweet about the new products they’re seeing, the people they’re meeting  and the industry events they’re enjoying. Outdoor Retailer sponsor Channel Signal will display these conversations, too, on four 50-inch screens strategically placed around the show.

They’ll toggle between the ORWinter Twitter feed and the top five mentioned exhibiting OR brands. Look for them while you’re there. It will be convincing visual evidence of how social media permeates even the outdoor industry and a reflection of how fast the conversation can shift, especially when there are thousands of people participating.

Next to the monitors will be a directory of 200 exhibitors on Twitter.

If you’re interested in attending the show, January 21-24, please register at outdoorretailer.com. See you there!

Yeserday the season’s first snowflakes fell around SOAR’s office near Salt Lake City. We’re ready for the slopes and powder that await us (see image below)! Winter is something to look forward to in the state with the greatest snow on Earth, and here’s why:

• 13 ski resorts, most which are less than 40 miles from Salt Lake City
• Nearly 400 inches average annual snowfall at the resorts
• Nearly 27,000 skiable acres
• More than 1,100 ski runs
• Snowboarding allowed at 11 out of the 13 resorts

Ski (or snowboard) on!

Information gathered using information from SkiUtah’s 2009-2010 Utah Resort Facts

Our "Best Of Utah" Route

I was skeptical moving away from my California paradise to the arid and hot and cold Utah desert. But this red rock, Wasatch state has proven itself in the year that I have lived here. This past weekend Utah re-wowed me as I spent three days taking my parents up and down Eastern Utah for their first visit. You could call it a “best of trip,” starting with mole at Salt Lake’s Red Iguana (killer Mexican food, really). The folks had fun with the Utah altitude hiking up to the Timpanogos Caves, driving through Castle County to Arches National Park, seeing Delicate Arch that graces the Utah license plate, riding the chair lift at Sundance and poking around art galleries in Park City.

And there are several bests we didn’t have time to do, like float down the Provo River, make our way through slot canyons, eat Navajo Tacos, snow skiing or sleep under the stars.

So, I’m living proof that you can drive nearly 600 miles in one weekend with your parents and finish the trip happy…as long as you have a group of adventurous spirits and an amazing state like Utah to tour.

“My bikes goes hard, don’t need no car” says the scraper bikers of the San Francisco Bay Area hyphy movement.

The scraper bike movement that originated in Oakland, Calif. is now sweeping the world. “Scrapers” in the hip-hop world are huge cars with rims so big they scrape the inside of the wheel well. According to a NRP story aired last year, Tyrone Stevenson Jr. (better known as “Scraper Bike King”) first thought to apply the aesthetic of the scraper car by fitting large wheels on small bike frames and painting the frames to match the rims, accenting them with colorful foil wrappers from food like Oreos, Doritos and Lemonhead. I saw several scraper bikes on display at the Oakland Airport on a recent trip to my hometown in the South Bay. They’re works of art as much as they are vehicles.

Stevenson made his first scraper bike because he couldn’t afford the car version. Now he makes a living designing them, while giving teenagers in his community creative and healthy ways to channel their energy.

Click here to watch the YouTube rap music video that started the now world-wide scraper bike phenomenon.

I’ve spent the past few weeks trying to figure out how to get back at my husband for the way he treated me on Valentine’s Day. While others were eating chocolate and smelling roses around scented candles, we were camping at the snow-covered Jordanelle Reservoir, in the dark, in the midst of a looming snowstorm. I wouldn’t have wanted to spend Valentine’s Day and other way.

Snow Camping at Jordanell Lake

Though I grew up enjoying the California outdoors, only a few times did I venture to sleep in them. So when Philip and I got married, I was eager to benefit from his backpacking and camping experience. My camping naivety made it easy for me to accept his suggestion to spend Valentine’s Day in the snow (most of my Utahan friends shivered at the thought of it).

On Valentine’s Day eve we set up camp in the dark, then enjoyed s’mores roasted over the awesome fire Philip built for us. We heard the falling snow brush against our tent the entire night and woke up to a very still and pristine morning. With hot chocolate in our bellies (thanks for the stove, Chip!), we set off on a snowshoeing adventure around the reservoir. There was no one around for miles, save a couple of ice fishers. You couldn’t beat the scene’s romance factor. Nice work, Philip!

Snowshoeing at Jordanell Lake

With spring (and hopefully warmer weather) approaching, I spend a lot of my free time thinking about all of the local adventures Utah and its surrounding states have to offer- Havasupai, the Narrows at Zion,  the Tetons to name a few. I need to get back at Philip for the amazing trip he planned and would greatly appreciate any/all reader suggestions.

P.S. Thanks to Joby for the amazing Gorillapod. We couldn’t have taken these shots without it!

Efforts to restore Utah Lake to its former beauty and pristine state are well underway, with the preliminary draft of a Master Plan unveiled this past month by the Utah Lake Commission.

Utah Lake covers more than 150 square miles, is 14-feet deep at its greatest depth and when full contains more than 870,000 acre feet of water.

Utah Lake during winter

According to a 2005 lake-wide study (the most recent such study conducted), it was estimated that non-native common carp constituted 91 percent of all fish within Utah Lake, with a projection of more than 7.5 million two-year-old (or older) carp inhabiting the lake.

Unfortunately, as bottom feeders, carp are also one of the greatest contributors to most public complaints surrounding Utah Lake - its turbidity (or murky) coloration. Carp are not the only culprits of the often cloudy condition of the lake, however, as manmade contributors (agricultural and factory runoffs), algae blooms and high-winds can combine to stir up the shallow waters to create less than attractive waters.

As a shallow habitat Utah Lake can and does support a variety of warm water gamefish, including white bass, walleye, channel catfish and several panfish species, including crappie and perch (each of which have been introduced to the lake).

Nevertheless, the list of Federal and state agencies that have a say in the management of Utah Lake is almost overwhelming and includes the

• U.S. Fish & Wildlife Services
• U.S. Bureau of Reclamation
• U.S. Bureau of Land Management
• U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
• National Parks Service
• Utah Reclamation Mitigation & Conservation Commission
• Utah Division of Forestry, Fire & State Lands
• Utah Division of Water Resources
• Utah Division of Water Rights
• Utah Division of Wildlife Resources
• Utah Division of Parks & Recreation
• Utah Division of Water Quality
• Utah Division of State History

All told, six federal agencies, eight state divisions, and dozens of other local municipalities, governmental organizations and non-governmental organizations, each have a hand in what happens to Utah Lake.

On top of these organizations, the Utah Lake Commission was

“formed to promote beneficial utilization of the natural resources of the lake . . . in keeping with the Public Trust Doctrine.”

As noted above, the preliminary draft of the commission’s Master Plan has been written and is now available for public comment and feedback. Reed S. Price is the Executive Director of the Utah Lake Commission and he can be reached by phone at 801-851-2900 or by email at rprice@utahlakecommission.org.

In addition, interested individuals are also invited to participate in the following online survey to provide public input to the commission.

Samson Riders Bicycle Club

Considering the plethora of well-established mountain biking cultures that exist worldwide, it is telling that Trips for Kids (TFK) would establish its first international chapter in Israel. In addition to the typical complexities that challenge childhood, Israel’s youth faces the challenge of developing tolerance for the variety of ethnic, educational, socio-economic and immigrant groups in their communities.

I imagine this is true even in Beit Shemesh, Israel, where Trips for Kids Israel- Samson Riders Bicycle Club (TFK Israel-SRBC) has been established.  This community in the heart of the Judean Plains merits a group like TFK Israel-SRBC that encourages young people to understand and unite with their peers of all backgrounds. Before Samson Riders Bicycle Club became the foundational group for TFK Israel, it had already been successful in bringing Jewish and Arab youth together to ride, learn about each other, break down barriers, discover new interests and respect the land. The club’s new relationship with TFK will make it possible to expand this program, Riding for Co-Existence, to give more underprivileged youth in Israel a chance to experience mountain biking and involve youth from other local ethnic communities in the bike ride planning and implementation.

Come late November, riders with TFK Israel-SRBC will take their first tour of the monasteries, water springs and olive groves as an official chapter of the Marin County, Calif.-based non-profit organization. For many of them, it will be their first time exploring their historic surroundings. For some, it may be their first time riding side by side with a peer who claims a different culture than their own.

You can learn more about Trips for Kids at www.tripsforkids.org.

Well . . . it’s finally official: SOAR is now the public relations agency for Outdoor Retailer! Way, way cool!

I plan to write more about this in the near future, but for now, I’ve enclosed below the “official” text of the full news release announcing this news.

Later,

David (”Poppa P”) Politis

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Outdoor Retailer Signs SOAR Communications as its PR Agency of Record

SOAR Communications selected to manage public relations efforts for Outdoor Retailer, a division of Nielsen Business Media and producer of the leading trade show for advancing the active outdoor marketplace

DRAPER, Utah and SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO, Calif. - Oct. 21, 2008 - Outdoor Retailer (OR), a division of Nielsen Business Media, today announced it has signed Utah-based SOAR Communications as its public relations agency of record.

Under terms of the multi-year agreement, SOAR Communications (a full-service marketing communications agency), will develop and execute public relations campaigns serving each of OR’s annual events, as well as all of its year-round PR needs.

“During the past three years, SOAR Communications has generated great results for our sister shows - Interbike and Health+Fitness Business Expo - so it’s clear they understand the specialty sports marketplace and our culture,” said Kenji Haroutunian, OR’s show director. “Naturally, we’re looking for similar results from SOAR with Outdoor Retailer, both in solidifying our support for trade media journalists, while also broadening our efforts to reach consumer-focused media outlets throughout the U.S. and abroad. As expected, SOAR has already hit the ground running on some key OR and industry initiatives. We look forward to a long and successful relationship with the SOAR team.”

Formed in 2004, SOAR Communications serves the Sports, Outdoor, Athletics and Recreation industries, thus the moniker SOAR.

“After attending my first OR (Summer Market) in 2004, I soon discovered that there wasn’t a single agency in recreation-rich Utah that focused specifically on servicing the sports, outdoor, athletics and/or recreation industries,” said David Politis, chief executive officer for SOAR Communications. “That led me to form SOAR in the first place, which is why it’s so cool to now be working with OR and the great OR team. I feel like I’ve now gone full circle back to SOAR’s very first beginnings, and that’s just awesome!”

As well as being the CEO of Draper, Utah-based SOAR Communications, Politis is the president and founder of Politis Communications (a long-time strategic communications and public relations agency focused on serving technology clients).

A year after forming SOAR, Politis invited Chip Smith to take the position of president at SOAR, thus leveraging Smith’s nearly 20 years of marketing and sales experience, including 10 years with bicycle industry leaders Shimano and Specialized and three years with Ogilvy & Mather, one of the largest agencies in the world. The resulting combination of Politis and Smith has helped transform SOAR Communications into one of the up-and-coming sports marketing communications agencies in North America.

“We’re excited to take the lessons we’ve learned with Interbike and HFB and apply them to OR,” said Chip Smith, president of SOAR Communications. “Naturally, SOAR will continue to serve the media in a collaborative manner that best meets their needs, while always looking for the best ways to land positive media exposure for the show and its exhibitors. We’re also eager to help Kenji and his team achieve their goals of further strengthening the relationships between OR exhibitors and endemic media, while also expanding exposure to non-endemic journalists as well.”

About Outdoor Retailer
Outdoor Retailer (OR), produced by Nielsen Business Media of San Juan Capistrano, Calif., is a full service trade show company that creates, markets and produces high-quality expos and educational conferences. OR is the leading outdoor industry business-to-business event management company, bringing together manufacturers, retailers, industry advocates and media to conduct the business of outdoor recreation. Now celebrating more than 25 years of successful events, Outdoor Retailer (www.outdoorretailer.com) gathers approximately 40,000 attendees on a semi-annual basis for its Winter and Summer Market shows.

The next opportunity to preview the future of the outdoor industry will start at the 6th Annual Backcountry Base Camp at Snowbasin ski resort on January 21, 2009, followed by the Outdoor Retailer Winter Market at the Salt Palace Convention Center from January 22-25, 2009 in Salt Lake City, Utah. The Outdoor Retailer Summer Market will bring the best of summer outdoor brands to Salt Lake City, Utah at the Open Air Demo from July 19-20, 2009 and the Trade Show from July 21-24, 2009.

About SOAR Communications
Voted one of Utah’s top three marketing agencies of 2008 by the readers of Business Connect magazine, SOAR Communications is an innovative strategic marketing communications agency focused on the sports, outdoor, athletics and recreation industries. SOAR offers clients a variety of services including advertising, collateral development, database-marketing, graphic/web design, public/media relations, social media/networking campaigns and sales support programs. Visit www.soarcomm.com or call 801-556-8184 for more information.

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I’ve now been “officially” working in the Sports, Outdoor, Athletics and Recreation industries for slightly more than 3-and-a-half years now, and I must say I continue to be shocked at the overall lack of new media sophistication I see within these industries.

Understand that this is not meant as a slam against all companies in these markets (although it may come across as such).

I also recognize that almost every company I now find in any industry has a Web site. But for many companies, that’s it. And in some instances, companies have little more than a brochure-ware Website.

Others are beginning to step forward and are beginning to embrace newer forms of interactive media, sometimes known as Web 2.0 technologies. These solutions and tools include

• Blogging,
• Online video,
• Social networks (MySpace and Facebook being the most popular, but not the only ones),
• Microblogging (through such tools as Twitter and Pownce, to name two), and
• Podcasting.

What’s even more amazing to me, however, is the seeming lack of interactive / Web 2.0 sophistication among the media companies serving the outdoor and recreation industries. Here again, I’m not attacking every media-publishing company serving clients and/or end-users in the recreation, sports, athletics and/or outdoor industries. Just most of ‘em.

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