The ISPO Winter show ended in Munich last Wednesday was a resounding success. The number of exhibitors grew to encompass a record of 2,026 companies and many that did not have a stand sent over executives for meetings and trend scouting. Attendance was more or less stable, matching last year’s record with a total of 64,000 passages through the turnstiles. Out of these, 70 percent came from outside Germany, with a major increase from Eastern Europe, and 20,000 were headed for the outdoors segment of the show, which covered four halls on the east side of the fairgrounds.
For ISPO’s management, which did an excellent job, the bullish atmosphere of the first three days was marred by the news on the last day that the OutDoor show will stay in Friedrichshafen through 2013. Capping a remarkably fair and transparent decision-making process that has lasted 18 months, the members of the European Outdoor Group (EOG) have in fact voted to keep the European 15-year-old OutDoor fair in Friedrichshafen for five more years, instead of transferring it to Munich.
The vote was taken by secret ballot on the eve of the ISPO Winter fair and supervised by a notary public who was instructed to report the outcome only at the end of the show on Wednesday, creating a lot of suspense until the last minute. The notary was asked not to disclose the split in favor or against Munich or Friedrichshafen. Only one of the 47 EOG members failed to participate in the vote because its representative could not manage to arrive in time from the Outdoor Retailer show held in Salt Lake City right before ISPO.
The EOG represents more than half of the European outdoor sports industry’s revenue. It includes three associate members – the British, the German and the Scandinavian outdoor groups – which were allowed to cast one vote each. The other 44 members are all companies and include major players like Columbia Sportswear and The North Face. Four companies – AKU, Kamik, Komperdell and Merrell – joined the association only recently.
All the members had agreed beforehand that they would stick with the majority’s decision no matter what. Even Vaude, the German outdoor company on Lake Constance that has been in the forefront of the battle in favor of Friedrichshafen, said before the final announcement that it would have shown in Munich at least once if the other companies had picked it as the venue of the summer show. Like many other outdoor companies, Vaude already shows at the winter edition of the ISPO fair.
Rolf Schmid, chief executive of Mammut Sports Group and president of the EOG, and Mark Held, secretary general of the association, both praised the professionalism displayed by the trade show organizers in Friedrichshafen and Munich in presentating their proposals, stressing that they both had merits. Each drew up a rather convincing report of 16 pages.
They noted that Friedrichshafen had been favored over Munich by a group of more than 200 VIP retailers from all over Europe, polled by an independent agency in behalf of the EOG before the final decision. They were mostly outdoor specialists, but not only, and they were recommended by the brands and selected in accordance with the proportion of buyers coming from their countries. The main reasons for the retailers’ choice were probably the ambience and other similar intangible factors, but also the fact that accommodation is cheaper than in Munich. They apparently downplayed the issue of transportation, which makes it difficult especially for first-time visitors from distant places. About 80 percent of the German retailers, led by Globetrotter, preferred Friedrichshafen, but so did the foreign retailers, to a smaller extent.
The choice of Munich would have probably helped to internationalize the fair further and to attract more buyers from outside the core outdoor segment. On the other hand the members of the EOG did not want to run against the preferences of their main clients. Looking at it from another angle, the community of Friedrichshafen won the contest because of a successful track record and a strong pressure to improve the attractiveness of its venue because it had more to lose from a transfer of the OutDoor fair to Munich. Attendance at the fair has grown every year, although it has to do more to become more international. The fairgrounds have continued to be modernized and extended.
Whatever the reasons given for Friedrichhafen’s victory in the race, the decision was a surprise to many observers, including some EOG leaders and some of its bigger members. Until Wednesday morning, before the EOG made its decision public, even brands with a clear commitment to Friedrichshafen admitted that their case was most probably lost, even though Munich may be ahead by only a fistful of votes.
To explain properly why Lake Constance made it in the end and why this is a surprise to many people from within the industry, we have to turn back some pages in the history of the OutDoor show. Friedrichshafen was selected in 1993 mainly by German outdoor companies including Vaude, Big Pack, Deuter and Tatonka which were at that time not happy with the way in which the outdoor industry had been treated by Messe München. The outdoor market and the OutDoor show have been growing massively since then, but some generalist retailers have indicated that they would prefer to see the outdoor brands under the same roof as the other components of the sporting goods sector in Munich. This has obliged many outdoor brands to exhibit at both shows in the summer, but while the OutDoor fair has gone up in attendance, the ISPO Summer show has faced a steady decline, partly because of the pull-out of the major athletic brands.
The contract signed in 1993 between the outdoor section of BSI, the German sporting goods industry association, and Messe Friedrichshafen expired in 2003. While most of the German brands and some small foreign vendors continued to prefer Friedrichshafen as the venue, some big international outdoor companies listened with interest to Munich’s counter-proposals. This led to the birth of the EOG, which took over the contract with Messe Friedrichshafen from BSI and signed it for five more years through 2008, with the understanding that the city would improve the logistic situation in terms of roads, flight connections and accommodation.
The final outcome of the vote was a surprise because of many reasons including the following:
-While Friedrichshafen has improved its act, Messe München has done an excellent job with the outdoor sector at its winter edition lately, especially at the last one
- The growing internationalization of the OutDoor show and of the EOG and the growing adoption of outdoor fashions for general streetwear should have normally played in favor of a more international venue such as Munich. It is likely that big German outdoor brands such as Jack Wolfskin, Lowa and Schöffel voted in favor of Munich for these and other reasons.
- Italian and Scandinavian outdoor companies are known to favor Munich over Friedrichshafen for transportation reasons, although many of them were represented in the EOG through associations that carried only one vote. The Scandinavian Outdoor Group (SOG) is led by Martin Kössler, who is also a representative of Messe München in the region.
Friedrichshafen probably made it in the end because it was more important for the members of the EOG to please their present customers and because they were afraid of dropping out of a “winning horse.” The majority also probably felt that it would have been difficult to transplant the heart of the OutDoor show to Munich, trying to re-create the atmosphere of the outdoor party on the lake and organizing barbeques for retailers in front of their tents in an urban venue like Munich.
These soft factors are particularly important for some small niche players, including many foreign companies, whose vote in the EOG was just as important as that of the big ones. According to one observer, some international brands that were in favor of Munich may have driven themselves out of the race by sending their German representatives over to the ballot. It’s possible that the latter voted for Friedrichshafen in spite of the brands’ opinion because the vote was secret. Some of these representatives are stationed in the region.
Anyhow, Friedrichshafen will have to confirm its worth over the next five years to stand up against Munich when the new contract expires. Indicating that the will keep the pressure on, EOG officials said it should be easier for exhibitors and visitors to find a place to stay in the region as of the next session, scheduled for July 17-20, because its dates will no longer coincide with those of a local festival, the Bregenz Festspiele. Three new hotels are due to be built in and near Friedrichshafen, and one or two of them should already be open by the Summer of 2008.
Manfred Wutzlhofer, chief executive of Messe München, said in a statement that he regretted yet respected the majority decision of the EOG, but stressed that the organization was continuing its full support for the outdoor industry’s participation in the ISPO Winter fair. Wultzlhofer is set to retire in two-three years’ time. Until then he expects to get help from a younger and experienced managing director, Klaus Dittrich, who may then become his successor.
In the shorter term, it will be interesting to see the effect of the outdoor industry’s vote on Messe München’s future policy with regard to the summer edition of the ISPO show. The Munich fair had signed a commitment not to organize a trade show that would compete with the OutDoor show without the EOG’s consent. Some more outdoor companies besides Jack Wolfskin and Meindl may want to show both in Munich and in Friedrichshafen in the summer to reach out to a wider audience, particularly in the fashion and lifestyle segment of the market, and the EOG’s choice against Munich could give ISPO a freer hand to negotiate their presence in a redesigned summer event whose shape will be revealed only after the ISPO China fair later this month.
