ASHEVILLE, N.C. (Oct. 7, 2024) — As it prepares for Connect, its Fall buying show next month, Grassroots Outdoor Alliance, the national organization dedicated to the health and growth of specialty outdoor retail, heads into its twice-annual event with a measured uptick in the number of attending buyers, vendors and appointments scheduled.
Retailer attendance will be up 13-percent to 157 retail businesses, vendor attendance will increase 8 percent to 134 brands, and total buyers in attendance will rise 3.5-percent to 387, compared to numbers at last Fall’s Connect Show. This Fall’s Connect Show takes place Nov. 11-14, 2024, in Kansas City, Mo.
In all, Connect will provide a forum for 9,717 appointments between retailers and brands, a 9-percent increase over last year, and 8,311 hours of meetings, a 3-percent increase. The Grassroots Outdoor Alliance team has tracked buyer engagement statistics since they began pre-scheduling all appointments for retailers and brands in 2016.
“It’s fantastic to see our show numbers reflecting strong interest, but what’s more important to us is that it’s business as usual at Connect,” said Gabe Maier, President of Grassroots. “That tells us that the role that Grassroots Connect continues to play as a key convener for essential outdoor industry conversations and a venue for specialty retailers to do the work they need to do — at the times of year they need to do it — continues to deliver value to our shareholders.”
Grassroots Outdoor Alliance will also host 61 outdoor brands at Discovery Marketplace, an event that takes place the evening of Nov. 10, the night before the Connect Show. Given the show’s focus on line showings between long-established brand-retailer relationships, Discovery Marketplace offers new and emerging brands the opportunity to interface with specialty retailers, and retailers the opportunity to see what’s new and exciting in the industry.
The Sunday prior to the show also offers a range of educational opportunities for retailers, including a panel discussion on planning and workflows around buying decisions, a session on how to employ traffic data to improve marketing efforts and sales challenges, a discussion by brand leaders on how retailers and brands can best align on demand planning, and a roundtable on current point-of-sale platforms and how to best use them, among others.
“Our Connect Show is often how we are most visible in the industry, but keeping track of trends, collecting data and using the information we gather to help our members run their businesses more effectively are at the core of what we do,” Maier said. “These educational sessions at Connect speak to that, and they tie directly to the work that we do every day for our members.”
About Grassroots Outdoor Alliance
Grassroots Outdoor Alliance is a retailer-owned network of 95 independently owned outdoor retailers and 66 vendor partners, working together for the health and growth of specialty outdoor retail. Through data collection and analysis, direct member support, specialty events and deep vendor partnerships, Grassroots Outdoor Alliance is creating both a vision and roadmap for the long-term success of independent specialty retail. Grassroots Outdoor Alliance is recognized as a catalyst for the success of its retailers and vendor partners; an advocate for specialty independent retail; a promoter of education and community within the specialty channel; and a key influencer of the national outdoor industry. Grassroots Outdoor Alliance also operates Connect, a twice-annual legacy show experience that spans four days, offering an efficient and structured format for retailers to conduct pre-season line showings and business conversations.
