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Fibre2Fashion
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Sep 27, 2017
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OutDoor trade fair in 2018 to support outdoor retailers

By
Fibre2Fashion
Published
Sep 27, 2017

As the OutDoor trade fair enters its 25th year in 2018, Messe Friedrichshafen has announced a Retail First Initiative to support outdoor retailers. There will be an updated invitation process for trade visitors and additional accommodation for retailers. The 25th European outdoor trade show will take place in Friedrichshafen during June 17-20, 2018.



The new Retail First Initiative places outdoor retail right at the heart of the show’s overall concept. Programme content, accreditation and tickets and accommodation have all been overhauled to allow retailers to benefit from a number of advantages during their visit to the OutDoor show. For example, the OutDoor team is reserving a large number of ERIBA City caravans exclusively for retailers and their employees, which can also be booked for one night only. “We’ve expanded the ERIBA City to offer more affordable accommodation that fits the outdoor atmosphere. And we’re giving retailers first priority,” explains Stefan Reisinger, head of OutDoor.

The show’s outdoor visitor invitation system and entry prices are also being revamped. “By inviting specialist retailers centrally via the OutDoor team, we plan to strengthen links to our most important group of customers and encourage attendance by directly offering free tickets specifically to individual retailers. In addition, we will be adjusting prices upwards for all other trade visitors outside of this core target audience,” explains Reisinger, while outlining the new approach.

In future, the OutDoor intends to further improve its programme of content for retailers. For example, the new OutDoor Plus themes – Lifestyle Collection, HangOut, Water Sports and Running, which all proved very popular in 2017. Messe Friedrichshafen is going to extend these areas and provide more in-depth information in 2018: “We want to go deeper and further explore each of these OutDoor Plus segments to offer visitors significant additional added benefit and value, on top of their core outdoor business,” adds OutDoor project manager, Dirk Heidrich commenting on next year’s objectives.

The Running sector in particular is developing fast. At the last OutDoor fair in June 2017, the Run&Trail Summit proved very popular with industry experts. Taking up the baton for next year, the OutDoor team plans to build on this success to offer a wider range of running-related events and workshops. With its OutDoor Plus themes, OutDoor 2017 once again attracted over 21,000 visitors from 90 countries and was well received by customers. The new June show date – one month earlier – met with widespread approval and provided a solid platform for the coming business year. “Together with our partner, the EOG, we adopted the right course and plan to continue to follow this successfully,” stressed Klaus Wellmann, CEO Messe Friedrichshafen, looking forward to OutDoor 2018, which avoids Germany’s Pfingstferien (Pentecost/ Whitsun holidays) next year.

In addition, the European Outdoor Group (EOG), the trade show’s partner is convinced that the trade fair is heading in the right direction and covering the right topics for its visitors. General Secretary, Mark Held, feels that the OutDoor offers a lot of great content for the industry and that the 2018 edition of the fair must continue to build on this. “We really liked the creative addition of these new events and attractions during the show,” he comments.
The OutDoor’s tried and tested programme highlights also continue to go down well: The OutDoor Industry Award once again demonstrated the high level of innovation among outdoor companies, the OutDoor Conferences with top international speakers were well attended, and will be extended for OutDoor 2018 to include the latest trends and issues.

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