TrailCon 2024. Vi var der.

Onsdag 26. juni 2024 var det duket for første utgave av TrailCon i Olympic Valley i California. Dette er en konferanse som har som hensikt å samle alle de viktigste stemmene i trail-industrien for å møtes ansikt til ansikt og snakke sammen for å sørge for at idretten utvikles i en sunn og riktig retning. Hans Kristian i NEDA var til stede og har skrevet en oppsummering og spilt inn podcast.

Programmet var som følger:

1: Åpning med grunnleggerne av TrailCon:

Brendan Madigan: Løpsarrangør til Broken Arrow Skyrace, event-arrangør, butikkeier
Dylan Bowman: Grunnleggeren av mediahuset FreeTrail, løpsarrangør, tidligere proff terrengultraløper
Doug Emslie: Investor med 30 år i trail-industrien bak seg

2: Paneldiskusjon med løpsarrangører:

Hensikt: Snakke om elefanten i rommet, UTMB, og om deres verdensherredømme har en påvirkning på mindre grasrotløp.

Konklusjon: Nei, ikke så lenge stiløping vokser såpass mye som den gjør per nå. Metafor som ble brukt: Så lenge kaka blir større blir kakestykkene også større. Den dagen kaka stagnerer i størrelse må vi alle kjempe for kakestykkene.

Det ble også snakket om utviklingen i hva utøvere forventer på et race i 2024 vs 2003 da UTMB ble startet og om Western States er blitt et sellout-løp pga deres samarbeid med Hoka og UTMB. I panelet:

Catherine Polletti: En av grunnleggeren av UTMB
Jamil Courey: Eier og CEO av Aravaipa Running
Craig Thornley: Løpsarrangør til Western States
Tim Tollefson: Løpsarrangør til Mammoth Trail Fest
David Callahan: Eier av Ultrasignup

3: Paneldiskusjon med media-folk i industrien

Hensikt: Snakke om hva som er “hot” for tida vs hva industrien faktisk trenger.

Konklusjon: Medium store mediahus er den store taperen for tida. Brukere vil konsumere innhold fra enkeltpersoner og mindre mediahus man har et personlig forhold til. På den andre siden av skalaen er store aktører som f.eks. NY Times en vinner fordi de tilbyr veldig mye variert innhold til en billig penge. Sitat fra Billy Yang, som siterte en annen person: “What’s the best way to make money on media? A lot of different ways“. I panelet:

Billy Yang: Filmskaper og ansvarlig for live-sendingen på Western States
Corrine Malcolm: Sportskommentator og proff terrengultraløper
Zoë Rom: Tidligere redaktør i Trail Runner Magazine
Megan Hicks: Journalist og en av grunnleggerne av iRunFar
Brian Metzler: Redaktør i Run/Outside Magazine

4: Paneldiskusjon med proffløpere og sponsorer

Hensikt: Snakke om rollene til sponsede utøver og hva sponsorer ser etter i en utøver i 2024 og i framtiden.

Konklusjon: Sally Mcrae mente at “at the end of the day you’re sponsored to sell products“. Robert Muecke mente at å sponse utøvere pga deres reach og merittliste var bare sprøyt. Han ser etter utøvere som på sikt kanskje kan gjøre det bra, men det viktigste er om de deler verdier med Adidas og om de passer inn i teamet. På sikt vil dette bidra til å selge sko, men det er ikke hovedfokuset. I panelet:

Sally Mcrae: Proffløper for NIKE, gründer og innholdsskaper
David Kilgore: Ansvarlig for markedsføring globalt hos On Running
Ryan Montgomery: Proffløper for The Feed og Janji
Amelia Boone: Tidligere proffløper og OCR verdensmester
Robert Muecke: Global Director of Sports Marketing for Adidas TERREX

5: Retailer-panel

Hensikt: Snakke om hva som skal til for å drive en “local running shop”. Og kanskje viktigst: Hvorfor er det viktig at de eksisterer?

Konklusjon: De er hjørnebrikker i løpemiljøer rundt omkring i verden. Det er vanskelig å drive butikk når produktene selges billigere på nett. Måten å sørge for at de ikke selges billigere på nett er at produsentene (som f.eks. Nnormal) er kjempestrenge på hva utsalgsprisen er. Utstyret skal ha samme pris over alt hvor det selges. I panelet:

Wes Allen: Eier av Sunlight Sports og “one of the most recognized people in the industry of selling outdoor gear.”
Brendan Madigan: Eier av Alpenglow Sports og løpsarrangør til Broken Arrow Skyrace
Mike Ambrose: NNormal’s såkalte Country Manager
Ted Knudsen: Eier av San Francisco Running Company og løpsarrangør for Quad Dipsea

Lydopptak / podcast

NEDA spilte selvfølgelig inn podcast på TrailCon. Hør det meste som ble sagt her.

Transcript av introduksjonen til TrailCon

Vi kjørte lydfila fra podcasten gjennom en AI-transkribator. Her er introen:

Dylan Bowman: Welcome to TrailCon, holy smokes. Thank you so much. We were blown away by the initial reception for the event and we view this as a really important moment in the history of the sport. And we’re just grateful that everybody’s willing to come and talk about all the important stuff together in a collaborative, unifying way. For those who don’t know, my name is Dylan Bowman. I’m one of the co-founders of Free Trail and my friends and partners here in the front row. Next to me, the real brains behind the operation. This is Doug Emslie. He’s the former CEO of Tarsus, he’s the owner of Raccoon Media, he’s an investor and a 30 year events industry leader. So he is the one who knows how to put these things together. Brendan and I, not so much. Doug, great to see you. Thank you so much for your help. Thank you Dylan, it’s great to be here. Everybody clap together. You should say he came all the way from London too, an important detail. Next to Doug, of course, the local legend, local community leader, the owner of Alpenglow Sports, iconic retail outlet here in the North Lake Tahoe region, also the race director of the Broken Arrow Sky Race, which celebrated another amazing running last weekend, Brendan Madigan. Like I said, you were blown away by the reception. We had a total of 379 people register. Obviously it’s a free event. There’s still a mountain of unclaimed dibs over there. But 379, at least it shows interest in what we’re doing. So, Craig Thornley, we may need your help in instituting a lottery here for TrailCon next year. Before we get to it, I’d love to ask you guys to just say a few words about what we’re trying to do here, what the mission is that we’re trying to achieve, just to set the foundation for the day.

Doug Emslie: Well, I’ll go first. As Dylan said, I’ve been in the events industry for over 30 years, and actually what we’re seeing in trail running is a very common phenomena that I’ve seen over that period of time, where you’ve got an industry or this space of sport that’s growing incredibly quickly. And with that growth will come issues, and what is quite clear that there needs to be a forum to bring everybody together face to face to discuss those issues, what’s going on in the industry today, but more importantly where you want to take the industry in the future and that’s why the whole concept of trailcon is so important for the next stage of the sport.

Brendan Madigan: I’m glad Dylan knows my name, because I’m not sure I do right now. I think it’s been a great parallel evolution to this point, where I’ve known Dylan for quite some time. I met Doug on the computer, which is weird, but awesome because we’ve learned so much from him. And really, we felt like trail running as a sport is magical. It’s the common thing that bonds everyone in this room. But we do have challenges and growth opportunities and hurdles, but I think there’s a lot of magic in meeting in person and talking about things. It doesn’t mean it’s always easy to talk about those things, but that’s where we have the common ground. We can talk with civil discord, if you will, and really move the needle on the sport. And selfishly, like I’m the biggest Western States fan in the room, sorry, and have been for a long time, but you know, we always felt like Northern California in the last 10 days of June, and there’s nowhere better to be. So we felt like we could create an event that bridged those gaps and gave something back to the community that was progressive and you know, helped everyone. Thanks, Boaz.

Dylan: So I just want to say a few words to kind of set the foundation for the day. For, I’m moderating the first three panels here today. We’re going to have four total panels. The fourth will be led by Wes Allen. That’s the retail panel, but I’m going to do the first three. And for each, I’m going to introduce sort of a quote to plant a seed in everybody’s head to just kind of set the tone for how I want that panel to evolve. Of course, we don’t have a lot of time here, so I’m going to do the best that I can. But in that spirit, I also came across a quote that I think is relevant to TrailCon as a whole. So I’m gonna read that here. It’ll probably be obvious why, and then we’ll probably get started after that. So this is a quote from Adam Brant, so you’ve probably met any of you guys now. And what he said on Twitter was, “The ideal end of an argument isn’t always to agree. It’s often to see where you’re coming from. Healthy disagreement isn’t about one person being right. It’s about both people feeling understood. The test of a good fight is whether insight is gained and respect is maintained.” And to me, this is the spirit of trail, right? I think most of us in the room make our living in the sport and therefore we have the obligation to sit and talk with each other, you know? This has been a hard couple of years. It’s an important time, but in those moments, let’s talk to each other, right? And that’s what we’re trying to do here. Because we’re obligated because whether we like it or not, thousands of other trail runners are, they experience the sport downstream of how we operate our businesses and how we treat each other. So that’s the spirit of TrailCon. We don’t have to agree on everything. In fact, we won’t. We’re not forging some grand consensus here. We’re having conversations and we’re hoping to have respect maintained, right? Doug, do you have any final comments before we get started?

Doug: No, I have to say that this is a really important time for the industry. It’s at a crossroads and actually this is just a taste of what’s coming next year. Next year is going to be a full programme where we can two days work away to the issues in a lot more depth. Today we’ll just touch on them and we’ll touch on as much as we can, but forgive us if we don’t cover everything you want to cover. That’s why you should come back next year. And I would just add, you know, my interest in the event is due to the fact that every best in my life, which is centered around the sport of trail running and the sport of backcountry skiing, comes from the collaborative, cooperative, positive partnerships. It’s the bedrock of everything I do. It’s the most rewarding. And it’s our hope that we can paint a positive outlet where everyone can unify and benefit. We’re gonna do more of a bigger launch next year.

Konklusjon av TrailCon 2024

Dette er definitivt starten på noe stort. Det viktigste vi kan gjøre for at idretten utvikles i riktig retning er å møtes og prate sammen. Dette er første gang noe slikt er blitt arrangert, og det er bra for industrien at vi har et samlingspunkt for å prate om betente temaer. Smart lokasjon og tidspunkt er det óg; midt i mellom to av Nord-Amerikas største og viktigste trail-løp: Western States og Broken Arrow Skyrace. Dette gjør at store og viktige aktører i industrien ikke trenger å dra ens ærend til Olympic Valley – sjansen er stor for at de ville vært der uansett denne uka. Vi gleder oss til fortsettelsen!