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Outdoor Retailer Is Out Of Utah

by The Editors on February 16, 2017

Today (Thursday, February 16, 2017) Emerald Expositions, the parent company of Outdoor Retailer and Interbike, announced that after holding a teleconference with Utah Governor Herbert that they will no longer be considering Utah as a potential location for future trade shows.

The shows reportedly bring nearly $45 million to the Salt Lake City economy each year, according to a story in the Salt Lake City Tribune and that money will be going elsewhere. . . Hells yeah, OR. For the official word, please follow the jump.

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Outdoor Retailer Responds To Boycott

by The Editors on February 14, 2017

In the last week the Outdoor Retailer Show has seen several companies state their opposition to the policies of Utah’s Governor Gary Herbert by announcing that they will not be attending this summer’s Outdoor Retailer Show in Salt Lake City, Utah — Patagonia, Arc’teryx, and Polartech just to name a few. With all these announcements the group that stands to lose the most is the Outdoor Retailer Show itself. And we wondered what their response would be.

In a open letter to the outdoor industry titled Our Goal is Not Just to Speak. Our Goal is to be Heard, OR Show Director Marisa Nicholson said today (Tuesday, February 14, 2017) that while several companies have announced they are leaving, other have showed their support.

“We respect that brands have to make decisions that reflect their values,” Nicholson says. “However, in the last week, the heart-felt expressions of support for the show from exhibitors of all sizes have far outweighed those choosing not to participate. Iconic brands such as adidas Outdoor, Ibex, The Conservation Alliance, The North Face, REI and Wolverine Worldwide, among many others have not only reinforced their intent to come to SLC this summer, but also, will make their voices louder than ever before. (Please look at unity.outdoorretailer.com for specific expressions of support.)

While Nicholson says OR respects the larger company’s decisions, the people she says the boycott hurts most are the smaller brands.

But the boycott of Outdoor Retailer levies the most significant negative impact on those medium and small-sized companies that count on the show to conduct business,” Nicholson says. “We have a unique, maybe even singular, opportunity to coalesce, organize, speak and lay plans to make a difference around public land awareness in such a way that it is not only heard but that it can make a positive difference.

Yes, trade show directors still believe that trade shows are important, and so do some brands, but Utah’s governor certainly isn’t helping anyone out by being staunchly against the protection of wilderness lands.

Nicholson says Outdoor Retailer is “as swiftly as humanly possible” looking for alternative locations to hold the show. So there’s that. For Nicholson’s entire letter, please follow the jump.

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Patagonia Pulls Out Of OR Show

by The Editors on February 7, 2017

Patagonia has decided that since Utah Governor Gary Herbert signed a resolution urging the President to rescind the Bears Ears National Monument, they are no longer attending the Outdoor Retailer Show in Salt Lake City.

Because of the hostile environment they have created and their blatant disregard for Bears Ears National Monument and other public lands, the backbone of our business, Patagonia will no longer attend the Outdoor Retailer show in Utah and we are confident other outdoor manufacturers and retailers will join us in moving our investment to a state that values our industry and promotes public lands conservation.“ – Rose Marcario, President and CEO, Patagonia, Inc.

That’s one way to get out of trade show. For the full word from Patagonia, please follow the jump.

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Titans Of Mavericks Goes Bankrupt

by The Editors on February 1, 2017

Capitola, California entrepreneur Griffin Guess, the guy running the Titans of Mavericks big wave surf contest and Big Cartel Management reportedly filed for bankruptcy on both businesses on Tuesday, January 31, 2017, according to a story in the Mercury News.

Cartel Management Inc. and Titans of Mavericks LLC, . . . filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection amid a sea of legal and financial problems. . . It’s unclear exactly what the twin bankruptcies mean for the contest this year and in years to come, since Cartel last year obtained a new five-year permit from the San Mateo County Harbor District to run the contest off Pillar Point.

But there is more:

The bankruptcies come on the heels of a judgment this fall in which jurors found Cartel and Guess’s wife, swimsuit model Marissa Miller, owed a company $1 million for breaching a contract to promote sunless tanning products and a tanning salon in Southern California. . . On Friday, Red Bull Media House filed a breach of contract and unlawful enrichment claim against Cartel and Titans of Mavericks for $400,000. Red Bull has broadcast the Mavericks contest live on the internet. . . Cartel also owes $280,000 to Fox Sports in another disputed claim, according to the bankruptcy filing. The harbor district is owed $6,600 as part of the government contract involving the Mavericks contest.

Guess says none of this should really worry fans of big wave surfing as the bankruptcy is part of a “strategy” to sell off the intellectual property rights and get them into the hands of someone who can “gain from all our hard work,” he said.

In fact, Titans of Mavericks spokesperson Kelsey Kaulukukui said in an email to the Mercury News that none of this should suggest that the contest won’t happen this year. Remember, bankruptcy is just big business’s way of saying, “whoops.”

[Link: Mercury News]

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Ex-Billabong CEO Gets 8 Year Prison Sentence

by The Editors on January 27, 2017

Former Billabong CEO Matthew Perrin was sentenced to eight years in prison for fraud and forgery on January 27, 2017, according to a story on News.com.au.

In sentencing the 44-year-old to eight years behind bars, District Court Judge Julie Dick said he still had “no self realisation or remorse”. . . “You seem to simply refuse to recognise that it was you who forged documents and you who caused them to be presented to the bank,” Judge Dick said. . . She said he blamed his ex-wife Nicole Bricknell, the Commonwealth Bank and his former business partners.

Doesn’t sound like odd behavior for a corporate CEO. This one just got caught, it seems. But it’s not over for him. He’s 44 year old and will be eligible for parole in 2021, unless his lawyers can overturn his conviction on appeal, which is exactly what they are going claiming “the jury’s verdict ‘was unsafe and unsatisfactory’.”

Unfortunately, in Australia it seems that they don’t have special country club prisons for white-collar criminals and Perrin will be placed in Arthur Gorrie Prison with “rapists and murderers” according to a story in the Gold Coast News. 

[Link: News.com.au]

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Burton Supports Women’s March On DC

by The Editors on January 19, 2017

Donna Carpenter, the CEO of Burton Snowboards, has decided to help out employees who are making their way to Washington DC for the Women’s March on Washington on January 21, 2017, according to a story in Cosmopolitan Magazine. Donna is giving employees who want to go two nights lodging and $250 cash towards travel. How’s that for support?

I knew there would be a lot of Burton women who were making the effort to get down to Washington,” Donna said. “They’re that type of people. We’re in Vermont, in Bernie-land. I had a lot of employees who were volunteering for Bernie [Sanders]. But it’s a long way from Burlington to Washington, D.C. For me, it’s all about numbers. What they need are numbers to make a point.

Not only does Burton live in Bernie-land, Bernie is like family to the company (literal family) so it makes sense. It will also be nice for everyone to get out in the streets of DC the day after Friday’s events. For more thoughts from Donna, click the link.

[Link: Cosmopolitan]

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The Lily Drone’s Crash Landing

by The Editors on January 16, 2017

Remember this Lily video? It was a drone that magically followed you wherever you went and shot epic follow cam footage without anyone at the controls. Yeah, we do, too. And when we first saw it we thought it was a bit of a dream product — great in the promo video, but never something that would actually work. In fact, we never even posted anything about it.

Apparently, many others believed the hype and threw down big money on pre-orders. Unfortunately, things didn’t go well during production of the drone and the company has now closed up shop and is trying to return money to those who pre-ordered. Meanwhile, the San Francisco District Attorney’s office has filed a civil consumer protection suit “alleging the company had intentionally lied to potential customers with its launch video” according to as story in Forbes.

An interesting side note is that legendary snowboard filmer Brad Kremer has been sucked into the story as he was the recipient of emails that are being used as evidence in the case against Lily. 

In an email cited by the lawsuit, Lily CEO Balaresque wrote to Brad Kremer, a video producer who specialized in snowboarding shoots, that shots from the Lily Drone will be using a “Gopro mounted to a Lily prototype. . . . However, we do not feel comfortable telling people that we shot [view from Lily] scenes with a Gopro (because the whole thesis of our product is that you do not need a Gopro),” he continued. “Can you modify a Gopro image in post-processing so that people cannot tell that it was taken from a Gopro…”

According to the story, Kremer declined to discuss the case with Forbes.

Which reminds us: Always beware the drones. . . 

[Link: Forbes via Boing Boing]

 

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Luxottica Gets Even Larger With Essilor

by The Editors on January 16, 2017

As if Oakley’s corporate parent Luxottica couldn’t get any larger, the company today announced that it has merged with French optics giant Essilor in a deal reportedly worth $49 billion, according to a story in the Orange County Business Journal.

The $49 billion deal, expected to close in the second half of the year, will create “EssilorLuxottica,” with total revenue of about $16 billion and more than 140,000 employees. Luxottica’s Executive Chairman Leonardo Del Vecchio will serve as executive chairman and chief executive, while Essilor Chairman and Chief Executive Hubert Sagnières will be appointed executive vice-chairman and deputy chief executive of the new entity.

Thanks to the new deal, Oakley is now siblings with Foster Grant as well as nearly every other eyewear brand and retail outlet on the planet. Guess they’ve got the entire spectrum covered now.

[Link: OCBJ]

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Surf Event Production Company CEO Leaving

by The Editors on January 12, 2017

The CEO of a privately owned entertainment company specializing in event and online streamed content production (mostly surfing sport) announced yesterday (Wednesday, January 11, 2017) that he is leaving the company that he helped create.

“It has always been my intention to pass the baton to someone at the right time to lead the next phase of what we have all created,” he said. “I believe that time is now. With the acquisition of the Kelly Slater Wave Company, we are at a remarkable inflection point in the League’s history and we are ready for a new leader who can guide the organization to even greater accomplishments.”

We did not have high hopes for the organization when it began, however, it has done an amazing job of packaging and presenting pro surfing to the global audience. We still believe the global audience which they are selling sponsorship against is much smaller than their business (and their high production values) can viably support, but they have survived for five years and likely will keep going as long as their current interim CEO wants to.

As we have mentioned before, this CEO appears to have a knack for leaving companies just before they implode. This could be because he’s such a great leader that the companies are unable to survive without him, or maybe it’s  a sixth sense for getting out just in time. Either way, it will be sad to see him go — especially for those who enjoyed making fun of him.

For the official exit message from the CEO, please follow the jump.

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NLand Surf Park Closes, Adds Beer

by The Editors on December 13, 2016

The dream of the perfect artificial wave is turning into a nightmare for Coors brewing heir Doug Coors and his crew at Autin, Texas’ NLand Surfpark.

After clearing numerous legal hurdles regarding dunking people into a pond of standing water, the Wave Garden park opened on October 7, 2016 only to close three weeks later after they were forced to drain the pool to make repairs (flooding local streets in the process), according to a story on KXAN. The park hasn’t been open since. 

“While this is disappointing for us all, we turn our focus to 2017 and the exciting plans we have in store. One hint: hops,” founder Doug Coors, whose relatives started Colorado-based Coors Brewing Company, said. In an email to KXAN, a spokesperson confirmed there will be a brewery on site sometime in 2017.

Ah yes, beer — the international problem solver. Sounds like an NLand Brewery might have been a better idea than a surf park. If there’s one thing everyone loves it’s beer. Wave pool surfing in brown water? Not so much.

[Link: KXAN]

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