The back end of November and early December have been marked by a flurry of events that I have been involved in for Right Lines and its clients, one way and another. I braved Storm Bert to attend Kendal Mountain Festival, then travelled with trepidation to Munich for ISPO, before taking the train to Loughborough for The Running Conference. As I finally return to base for a while and properly unpack a bag, it’s also time to unpack my thoughts on those events.
I’ve not missed a Kendal Mountain Festival for 25 years, and it remains a cherished date on my calendar, still a wonderful ‘tribal gathering’ that’s full of soul and authenticity. I do miss the intimacy of earlier editions, but the team has done a brilliant job of managing the challenges of growth, within the limits of what the host town has in terms of venues and space. However, elements of trade event style content have crept into the festival in recent years, and I won’t apologise for not liking the escalation of this development. To my mind, it blurs the focus, distracts from what Kendal has always, and should always, be, and frankly, I find it annoying. Perhaps I should get with the programme and embrace everything, but I’d rather not. I can appreciate the logic – so many folk from the trade are there anyway – but feel that organised B2B aspects should be distinct from the main festival, perhaps confined to the day before it starts (in the way that The Great Outdoors magazine used to host its awards event a few years back), or limited to the Thursday (a principle that some people/organisations observed this year).
Of course, ISPO is all about the B2B. I travelled to Munich with some nervousness about what I would find. It’s no secret that trade shows have been struggling to prove their worth in recent years. There has been a perfect storm of factors buffeting them (with gusts to rival the aforementioned Bert!), so I was prepared to be underwhelmed. But while I wasn’t overwhelmed, I was genuinely encouraged by my experience at the show. Sure, it’s held in significantly fewer halls than in the dim and distant, but there was some imaginative and engaging brand activation, and plenty to enjoy and learn from on the various stages around the messe.
For the first two days, I felt that there was a decent buzz and a healthy crowd (the Berghaus booth was certainly busy), and the European Outdoor Group and Messe Munchen used the event to promote the new concept for OutDoor, which garnered a positive response. Landing that new concept will represent the next iteration of what a trade show can and should deliver, and (IMHO) it’s really important that the industry collaborates to make it happen. OutDoor already means much more than the metres squared sum of its parts, and we will really regret it if we allow it to fail.
Finally, back in the UK, I made my way to Loughborough for a much newer event, The Running Conference. Right Lines has been a member of the Running Industry Alliance (RIA) for three years now, and this is the set piece moment in the organisation’s year. The conference has evolved – and grown – rapidly in that time, and I have enjoyed each of them. As a runner myself, it’s great to be among peers, networking and hearing from speakers on a range of topics, but the Right Lines jury is still out. I bumped into several people who, like me, have been at each of the three events I’ve attended in recent weeks. I think we’re all ready for a bit of a break (and our families agree!), and maybe my reaction is due to feeling a bit jaded. There was some great content at the conference and many talented and engaging people involved. Of course, there was a running specific perspective to everything, and that was useful, but there was not a lot that was brand new, or which I can’t access already from organisations that I’ve been associated with for much longer (partly a consequence of the overlap between running and outdoors). At least, there was not enough to significantly elevate the event above others that I attend, despite the undeniable buzz.
That has to be a consideration – for a small business like mine, the conference is an expensive event to attend. I want to persevere and my instinct is that it’s genuinely great and important that the RIA community exists (in the same way that the EOG and Outdoor Industries Association bring together the core outdoor trade), but so far, the benefits of the Right Lines membership have been limited, when weighed up against the considerable investment. And there were announcements made during this year’s conference about new initiatives for 2025, which I suspect will cost more to access, without piling on the tangible benefits of being involved.
I’m glad that I went to all three of the above events, and it’s been a privilege to be able to do that. Any comments that I have made about them should be viewed through the prism of me trying to be constructive and wanting them to succeed (not just for the benefit of Right Lines or me). And I hope to return to each of them next year, though I won’t complain if they’re a little more spaced out in the diary, thus reducing the chance of me becoming spaced out in mind!
Chris.
rightlines.info 