Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
Keith McCord Repoting For the next five days, you'll probably see a lot of people in the downtown area, and they'll be wearing some new winter boots or carrying an unusual new snowboard. The winter version of the Outdoor Retailers Market is getting underway.
This show is for sporting goods retailers to come and see what's new, and to place orders for merchandise. They place their orders a year in advance. The main show opens at the Salt Palace tomorrow, but today, retailers got a chance to see and test some of the new equipment outside.
Brighton Ski Resort today was also known as the "Back Country Base Camp," for the outdoor retailers. From boots, to skis, to clothing, and everything else, this pre-show event gives store owners a chance to get their hands on the new stuff and try them out.
Something we haven't seen before is an inflatable snowboard called the "Airboard." You lay down on it and lean to carve your turns.
Ann Elise Emerson, Airboard: "They work in any type of snow conditions. As you can see, it's inflated. They pack down into small bags, just six pounds, so they're easy to carry into the backcountry if you snowshoe."
On this snowy, wintery day, potential buyers were having ball trying it out.
Something else that's brand new, and in the design phase for the past three years, the "Snow-mo-bike"! Jason Cheney's dad thought of it a couple of years ago when his snowmobile broke down in the back country and he needed a way out.
"They just thought back to the summer when they road on these trails. They ride them in the summer all the time, so they just thought it would be great to have a bike they could ride on the snow."
Perfect for cross-country type groomed trails, but going uphill will be tough on it!
Retailers were also checking out one of the oldest pieces of winter recreation equipment--the snowshoe. Tubbs Snowshoes Company of Vermont has been making them for 100 years now. They're getting lighter, more colorful. Coming to this show helps designers get new ideas for future models.
Kathy Murphy, General Manager, Tubbs Snowshoe Co.: "We are now experimenting with luminescence, where we can go out at night with a headlamp and experience a new type of snowshoeing."
One other note about this year's winter market, this is the first time that promoters have sold out ALL the vendor space. There are 724 companies that'll have booths set up at the convention center.
