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How do you know if a kayak floats when you’re looking at it inside of a convention center? Great question. Fluorescent lighting and central A/C doesn’t really make an ideal atmosphere to experience products meant for the outdoors, and yet that’s long been the norm for trade shows.
But at the New Age trade show, the focus is experiential. And it’s more inclusive; there’s less of a barrier to entry for consumers, which expands the network from the typical press and buyers to include creatives and brand-aligned makers. People stick around the event long enough to make some worthwhile impact.
Still in its infancy, Outpost is one of a number of days-long events where the overall experience is the focus. On June 23–25, founders Jeff Wolfe, Evan Dudley and Caleb Morairty, along with CEO Eric Bach, hosted the third edition in Upstate New York, where brands like Hydro Flask, Goal Zero, United by Blue, Teva and Oru Kayaks spent the weekend introducing key industry players to their products and culture. There were iron cooking workshops with Barebones Living and cocktail tutorials with Bulleit whiskey — not to mention, the primarily urbanite crowd from NYC had their night’s rest bunked on a Disc-O-Bed.
Outpost isn’t totally alone in this space: Summit, which has events in the mountains, at sea and in places like Downtown LA, draws names like Jeff Bezos, Kobe Bryant and Marie Kondo in an invite-only TED-like (but hipper) arena. And in a similar vein, newcomer Farm+Land will be inviting city dwellers who dream of a life outdoors to weekend retreats to get back to the land, learn a bit of farming and wilderness survival and sleep in tiny houses, starting September.
As Outpost gears up for its larger flagship event in Mendocino this September, it’s already clear that these experience-first events are onto something; successful past events in Joshua Tree and Bodega Bay are testament enough. We chatted with Dudley about the run of the show and why getting people outside to test gear is better for brands.
