Colorado’s political leadership is uniting in a bid to land the Outdoor Retailer trade shows.
Gov. John Hickenlooper and Sen. Michael Bennet, both Democrats, and Sen. Cory Gardner, a Republican, sent a letter on Monday urging the outdoor industry and Emerald Expositions, show’s owner, to consider Denver as a potential new home for their annual gatherings.
The Outdoor Retailer summer and winter shows lure more than 40,000 attendees who spend more than $45 million a year in Salt Lake City, where the shows have been held since 1996. The trade shows’ owner and some outdoor industry companies and retailers recently announced they were leaving Utah over the state’s efforts to rescind the recent designation of the Bear Ears National Monument and the 1996 designation of the state’s Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.
The outdoor industry — including high-profile companies like Patagonia and Arc’teryx, who announced they are boycotting Outdoor Retailer in Salt Lake City — views Utah’s recent policies as an attack on public lands, the lifeblood of outdoor businesses.
Patagonia chief Rose Marcario told Utah Gov. Gary Herbert in a pivotal phone meeting last week that the state’s public lands positions posed not a political issue, but a moral issue for her environmentally active and influential company.
“Never really, in our history of working in conservation, has a state sought to rescind a national monument, let alone two,” she said. “The long-term vision for these being public lands for Americans to enjoy for generation after generation and protection of wilderness is really at the heart of what we are talking about here. History shows if the lands are not protected they are often sold to the highest bidder, often energy development or mining or something like that.”
That call with Emerald Exposition, the Outdoor Industry Association and other outdoor company leaders saw the governor asking for more time to “work through the process,” as Utah’s Washington, D.C., delegation met with new Trump Administration members to discuss Bear Ears.
Herbert said the state’s issues with federal control of the 1.35-million-acre Bear Ears National Monument — which was created by the Obama Administration in December — has to do with how to best protect the area while giving Native Americans more control over the area.
“It’s always been about management,” Herbert said of his state’s push to limit federal control of land in Utah. “It’s never really been about ownership.”
Colorado has been championing its public lands record and its embrace of outdoor recreation as a vital economic engine, hoping to draw the eye of Outdoor Retailer.
“As Coloradans, we value and protect our public lands because we recognize the enormous influence they have on our quality of life and our outdoor economy,” Bennet said in a statement. “The abundance, accessibility, and beauty of public lands in our state makes Colorado a perfect destination for the Outdoor Retailer show.”
Gardner, whose party platform calls for the conveyance of certain federal public lands to states, joined his state’s Democratic peers in lobbying for Outdoor Retailer. Utah’s push to claw back federal lands for state control triggered the pending exodus of Outdoor Retailer. Gardner last year co-sponsored a unanimously supported bill that will include the outdoor industry as part of the country’s annual economic assessment.
“Conserving and protecting the public lands Coloradans cherish is a top priority of mine,” Gardner said in an e-mail. “I’ll continue to work with my colleagues in Congress to protect public lands in Colorado and around the country.”
Colorado’s commitment to public lands and its thriving outdoor recreation industry “makes it the premiere location for the Outdoor Retailer show,” Gardner said in a statement. “I’m thrilled to support Colorado’s bid to host this event and showcase our state’s natural beauty.”
Visit Denver, the city’s convention and visitor bureau, plans to bid for the Outdoor Retailer trade shows as well as Emerald Exposition’s InterBike trade show, which removed Salt Lake City from consideration in its search for a potential new host.
A possible hitch in the plan centers on fitting the Outdoor Retailer summer trade show — which takes up close to 900,000 square feet at Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City — in the 584,000-square-foot Colorado Convention Center. (Planners say adding the revamped National Western Complex could provide Outdoor Retailer with enough room.)
Another potential problem is Denver’s contract through 2030 with the annual SnowSports Industries America Snow Show (a clause prohibits conflicting shows in the months bookending the Snow Show). SIA leaders have said they are open to developing a winter trade show in Denver that blends both gatherings.
