Best Booth: The North Face. Partly because they have the money to spend and partly because they have a great brand. The entire booth reminded me of a base camp on Everest. The domed tent feel was fun and bright and screamed technical. TNF always does a good job of keeping a modern but rugged feel to it. TNF has been producing quality products for so long that it doesn’t have to be gimmicky and can stick to what it is. The same feel is on the website. Clean and technical. They just do what they do and they really make you see it. The booth had a mini theater in it and showed films of accents and descents, and put you in the mood to be at the base camp with all the storied climbers. The booth had a great feel to it and visually was the most striking.
2nd place: Columbia. They did a really good job of opening it up this year. There were two areas, one warm side and one cool side. The warm side was to really introduce the Omni-Heat branding and they did a wonderful job. The booth had a Columbia montage lighting above the warm side in red’s and oranges… really cool. I talked to the lighting and audio coordinator and he said that Columbia didn’t want to mess around and wanted to make this feel great. The warm side had a runway where models put on two shows a day and beers flowed freely. The booth was a close second to TNF. Columbia in general is a brand that wants to offer something for everyone while still making it quality. Put it just below The North Face and above Eddie Bauer for outdoor quality appearance (I’m not saying performance). The cool side continued to show images of families and the products to be used. The lesser impressive of the two sides but still quite impressive all together. Side note, Columbia owns Sorel which had the models last year, this year, Sorel right next to Columbia was scaled down quite a bit, small booth, less images but still a nice clean booth. Mountain Hardware which is owned by Columbia was surrounding Columbia along with its other brand Montrail.
3rd place (and most fun): Keen. I’ve talked about them before but it had such a good feel to it, so I’m throwing props their way again. Nice job folks. The lounge, the trailer, the cabin. Cool.
Worth Mentioning:
Ex-Oficio. I see them around, I’ve looked at their products and honestly, I can’t put them in a category. Adventurous Traveler is what they preach but it’s not technical nor is it cheap enough to just wear… oh well, I guess there is a niche for them somewhere. Croakies: Good for them, they’re still at it. One big push for them is fishing. They have a new sunglass leash that is designed for the fisherman that won’t get caught. Under Armour has moved heavily into that arena too. Teva: at it again, trying to be cool. The booth was a bit smaller and closed up and didn’t have the raucus party feel to it but the DJ was there spinning (I even got a CD from it). I thought it was OK, I would have liked to have seen something better from them after last year.
There seems to be shoe companies all over the place 5/10 is one of those… adventurous sports is what they claim. We’ll see how they do. Easton, the company divested its team sports side of things to Bell-Ridell and is now focusing on mountain products and hunting (mostly bow hunting). The offerings are pretty limited, tents, snow shoes, and trekking poles. The products are very high quality and the branding is getting there. While speaking to people at the booth they feel that there is a ton of potential and getting it there will be the key. The technology is really sound and the products have a “quality” feel to them. It’ll be fun to see where this historic brand goes.
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