The January 2021 Surf Expo may have been pared back to help keep participants safe, but it didn’t stop buyers and exhibitors from making meaningful connections.
“Our goal was to create a secure, safety-first environment for the exhibitors and retailers who wanted and needed a marketplace to conduct business,” says Lori Silva, executive vice president, retail group, of show organizer, Emerald. In spite of many challenges, we feel that this goal was achieved and based on feedback from both retailers and brands, we feel that the show was a success.”
While the overall size of Surf Expo January 2021, held at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando Florida, was less than half the size of the prior year’s edition due to the impact of COVID-19 along with restrictions in national and international travel, buyer to exhibitor ratios increased by 23% which drove significant improvements in overall exhibitor satisfaction. Exhibitor net promoter scores from the January 2021 edition of Surf Expo increased by 63% over 2020.
“This was our first year as an exhibitor and we did pretty well this year,” says Saltwater Born Founder Jack Kempton. The company sells UPF 50, moisture wicking shirts for anyone who loves sun, sand and saltwater. “Coming in as a new brand, we were told to keep our expectations low sales-wise, because while people like new brands, they’ve got to know that you can come through for them. But we ended up getting five or six new stores.”
The Admiral’s Daughters, an ocean-themed apparel brand for women had its most successful Surf Expo ever out of the seven times they’ve exhibited there. “No one really knew what to expect,” says owner Lindsay Ameralt. “But we ended up having a great show and so did other vendors around us.”
The smaller show footprint worked to Ameralt’s advantage. Buyers had more time to walk the floor and spend time learning about emerging brands, she observed. Because of the increased distance required between booths, The Admiral’s Daughter’s booth was given a larger space than usual to display products and show off her new men’s line of apparel, Old Salt.
“All but one of our orders written at the show were new customers,” Ameralt notes.
David Barsalou, owner nautical home décor company Davine International says, “The quality of the orders we wrote were good which suggests buyer’s inventories are pretty depleted.”
Surf Expo attendee Amanda Frick has attending Surf Expo for more than 20 years, from the age of 16, because of her love of the industry. She and her husband Craig now own two boutiques, Neighborhood Shop Stuart and Neighborhood Shop Ormond Beach. They also represent several brands through their sales business, Frick Sales and Services, including Globe Skateboards, Impala Rollerskates, Anetik, BN3TH, Dark Seas, Beach Party and Surface Sunscreen, which was a Surf Expo exhibitor.
She says the enhanced safety protocols put in place because of the COVID-19 pandemic did not take away from herand her husband having a successful show from both a buyer and a rep perspective.
“I didn’t mind getting my temperature taken at the door,” she said. “I think it gave people peace of mind that no one was walking around the show with any symptoms.”
Even though the show was smaller than usual and some familiar brands were absent, Frick was still able connect with several new brands she had been wanting to see.
“I was happy Mattise Footwear was there. I was happy I-SEA Eyewear was there because it is such a fast fashion girls’ brand that is so popular. We also carry fair trade jewelry and there were a couple of vendors there.”
Frick is planning to start carrying jewelry from fair trade vendor, NICA Life Project, a company she met with at the show that provides jobs to women in Nicaragua.
The Fricks plan to attend Surf Expo again in September, and Frick expects the show to be more of what people are accustomed to. “People are ready to get back to normal,” she says.
Ryan Hewson, owner of Mocean, an apparel store in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, says, “We'll get it back to bigger and more normal again, but for such a time as this, it was a fantastic (and safe) show.”
“The Surf Expo team was excited to take the first steps in reuniting our markets with a face-to-face event as we head into 2021. We were driven by market need and demand and successfully provided our customers a protected, controlled environment with strict safety protocols,” Roy Turner, Show Director, Surf Expo, senior vice president, Emerald.
The next edition of Surf Expo is Sept. 9-11, 2021 at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando.
