August 01, 2011
H2O Paddles at
OutDoor Retailer Summer Market 2011:
For the second year in a row; the
H2O Paddles team spent August 1st- 8th at the Outdoor
Retailer Convention in Salt Lake City Utah. The show is a great way for us to
expand our paddles into markets where, conventionally, we have a difficult time
reaching (mainly International Markets and the North-Western and South-Western United
States). The show is also a great place to meet current dealers that we typically
only talk to on the phone and see the new developments in the Outdoor Retail
industry.
After a
long day of travel on Monday; Rick, Shillion, Scott and I spent the majority of
the day setting up our booth in the convention center and preparing for my favourite
part of the whole show: the On Water Demo at Jordanelle State Park. The On
Water show gives everyone a chance to try out new paddles, boats, SUP Boards
and other awesome toys and the overall attitude is really fun and positive! I
was really confident that we were going to have a really productive day with a
lot of interested dealers stopping by to see our new Nano SuperTour and ECO-Rec
paddles, and I was right! We were swamped all day giving product demonstrations
and explaining Nano Technology. By the
end of the day all of us were exhausted, but happy and despite a few hours of
some really windy and cold weather; we had a really positive day. After the
show I was excited to hear that a Guinness World Record had been broken for the
largest stand up paddle board by C4 Waterman. SUPZILLA
was paddled by a record 31 paddles as it flew through the water, spewing dry
icesmoke. It was really wicked to see and it looked like a ton of fun.
The next few days we spent
inside the beautifully air-conditioned Salt Lake Palace Convention Center in
Salt Lake City and it was much of the same; meeting and re-connecting with
friends and touching base with dealers. The feedback about our new paddles
TheSupertour the Eco-Rec and the Hydra (New Nano whitewater paddle. Don’t worry
the web page will be up very soon!) was amazing! Everyone said that the nano
technology paddles were game-changers and that the ECO-Rec was the perfect
paddle for beginner kayakers. It was awesome to hear so much positive feed
back!
By
the time Sunday rolled around we were eager to pack up our booth as fast as
possible, get some food in our stomachs and drink some well deserved beers! And
when 2:00pm rolled around we were on a mission. Before you could say “OutDoor
Retailer 2011 was awesome!” The paddles were put away, the booth was packed up
and we were ready to put another OR Show behind us. The next day (Monday) we
flew out of Salt Lake City at 2:00 and landed in Toronto at 10:30pm EST. You
would think that after such a long intense show the H2O Team would be exhausted
and ready for a vacation, but you would be wrong. All of us are so pumped up at
the success we had and the people we met that we are ready to keep on moving at
this break-neck speed. We are all more excited than ever about the growth and
success of this company, and we are producing the highest quality paddles this
company has ever seen! So with that I would like to thank GES, Salt Lake City
and OutDoor Retailer Summer Market for hosting another fun and successful show.
Ask your local specialty store for H2O Paddles because this is going to be a
record breaking season for H2O!
Check below for some pictures!
Cheers,
Jim
Walton
H2O
Performance Paddles
Sales/ Marketing Account Rep
H2O's booth at the On-water Demo! Shillion, Scott, and Rick in our booth at Salt Palace
The Record Breaking SUPZILLA! (not all 31 paddlers we on at this point)