At ISPO Munich, Innovations, Inspirations Galore — but Not Much Buying

MUNICH, Germany — One of the world’s biggest sporting goods trade fairs is determinedly turning away from the traditional business of writing orders and heading toward making contacts, initiating collaborations and discovering innovations instead.

Like many other trade fairs around the world, ISPO Munich has had to deal with the threat of irrelevance due to, among other things, a reduction in visitors and exhibitors, particularly after the COVID-19 pandemic, and the increased use of digital tools to make business contacts. So this year ISPO’s motto was “love every contact.”

“ISPO Munich has not been a transactional order show for a long time,” the trade fair’s head of communications, Carsten Schuerg, said via email. “We see ourselves as a global platform for the sports industry to present innovations, exchange trends and network within the industry and beyond.”

According to visitors, the three-day trade fair, which took place last week and which is regularly billed as the biggest of its kind in the world, does seem to be shrinking. From attracting more than 80,000 visitors to its huge halls on the outskirts of Munich — the fair saw a peak of 85,000 in 2017 — this year only around 55,000 attended. The number of exhibitors also fell, going from an average of around 2,665 annually between 2014 and 2018 to 2,300 this year.

Those who’ve been coming to ISPO for years also noticed the lack of bigger name brands from the outdoor industry that used to attend and host particularly large stands, including names like Burton and Quiksilver and even Germany’s own Jack Wolfskin. Industry insiders told WWD that representatives from those big brands were there — but mostly only as visitors.

Exhibitors who mentioned these losses preferred to voice such criticism off the record.

“We are seeing our key accounts here but really, it’s not what it used to be,” one sales representative, who’d previously worked for Burton and is now working for a smaller brand, told WWD. “It’s changed a lot over the years. A lot of money used to be spent here but it’s not that sales-heavy anymore. Mostly we’re just getting a lot of other brands and designers coming through our stand, who are interested to see what we’re doing.”

“I’ve been coming here for about 30 years with different brands,” another sales rep for a U.S. brand said; ISPO has been running since 1970. “At the beginning it was pretty wild, with mostly board sports coming, and there was always a bit of a party. I’m responsible for Germany sales now and I’ve really only had a few customers come by. And only the big players, not the smaller accounts. Basically these days we do most of the sales in our showroom. I’d now see this [ISPO] as more of a place to connect with the international industry.”

“The challenging market situation — reluctance to buy and high inventory levels — has led to some brands taking a break,” ISPO’s Schuerg acknowledged. “But, as mentioned, we do not see ourselves as a trade fair but as a platform for all those involved … not only buyers, but also corporate social responsibility managers, supply chain managers, human resources managers, product designers, licensors, etcetera. We will increasingly focus our offer on these target groups in the future.”

And not everybody felt that filling the order books should be the point of ISPO, declaring themselves satisfied with the contacts they were making.

“We’ve only been doing this for five years so I never wrote orders with big brands in smoky back rooms,” Derek Tillotson, founder of Utah-based company Haven Tents, said. He was showing in a stand set up for several brands from the state, including Teton and Coalatree. This was Tillotson’s third time at ISPO. “As a smaller brand that wasn’t established here [in Europe], just getting our foot in the door is valuable in itself. Our brand does best in small to medium retail environments — we’ve done that successfully in a few markets here, including in Norway and Sweden — and we keep coming back because I believe those relationships grow in increments.”

It’s not really your typical order fair, a representative for Scandinavian eco-sneaker brand Woden confirmed. “It’s much more about gathering information and making contacts.”

“I’ve met people I would never have met on a Zoom call,” Sarah Christoph, marketing manager at Oregon-based footwear company Danner Boots, said enthusiastically. “As an American company in Europe, it’s all about relationships. What’s also been really neat is meeting some of our suppliers. We use a lot of premium materials and we’ve had people like Gore-Tex come over and introduce themselves, which has been great.”

U.S. fitness brand Fabletics was also making its first outing at ISPO. Previously the only way Europeans could experience the product was online, Fabletics’ vice president for brand marketing Daniel Klarkowski told local media. Having one of the larger stands at ISPO was really helping present the brand to European retailers, he said.  

“It is a lot smaller than I remember,” conceded Nick Sargent, president of Snowsports Industries America, the U.S. trade association for the winter outdoor industry; Sargent took part in panels at ISPO and previously worked with some of the world’s biggest snow sports brands. “But the vibe is positive and good, and there are more brands than I thought I was going to see, which has been great. The small talk around the show is that the industry does want to come together and is looking for an excuse to do that.”

In fact, Sargent would like to see bigger brands that were missing from ISPO return to the event.

“It’s obviously a choice for each company,” he told WWD. “But in my personal opinion, we do better when we are together, to solve more problems, make stronger connections. We just work together well as an industry.”

Sustainability Goes Mainstream

One of the major challenges the outdoor industry is facing is climate change. For example, as Sargent pointed out, winter sports, which are worth $7.7 billion annually in the U.S., has lost 34 potential days of business there since 1984 because of warmer temperatures.

The topic of sustainability was everywhere at ISPO. Although there was a dedicated “green” area — ISPO’s Sustainability Hub in partnership with trail-blazing brand Patagonia — there almost was no need for it. It was hard to find a brand or business at ISPO that wasn’t attempting to do its part to mitigate climate change.

“Previously you’d see smaller companies dedicate themselves to this topic but that [theme] has grown and grown,” Anna Raffaelli, regional manager for the German-speaking market at U.K.-based decarbonization consultancy The Carbon Trust, said. “From what I can see looking at the numbers, it goes beyond the surface too. I’m really happy about this because it highlights that the industry is moving in the right direction and it just seems natural that this should come from the sports sector — because these are the people who love the outdoors.”

In terms of this topic, attendees could find everything from established brands presenting sustainability updates at ISPO to brand new start-ups seeking contacts for their eco-friendly innovations, to a smart display in the middle of the Materials Lab area, where visitors could touch the very latest in eco-friendly material and insulation, and read guidance on where to find the manufacturer at ISPO.

Pushing for more sustainability became a little more difficult when Amer Sports listed on the New York Stock Exchange in February this year, Anne Larilahti, vice president for sustainability at the group, said during a panel talk on sustainability. Amer Sports, whose brands include Arc’teryx, Peak Performance, Salomon and Wilson, saw revenues of $4.4 billion in 2023. After its public offering, it became more dependent on shareholders who might prize profit above environmental protection.

“It’s not a huge business in the short term,” Larilahti admitted, speaking about the repair and recycling services that premium Amer Sports brand Arc’teryx now offers customers at its SoHo, New York, store. “But we see it as preparing for the longer term. We will be in a very different world in 10 years and although we are aware it’s not going to be profitable in the beginning, we decided this is needed to protect the long-term value of the company.”

‘Exer-gaming’ and Sports Data

The other huge trend at ISPO, visible in all the halls, was how sports could be accommodated in an increasingly digitized world.

Visitors could explore a wide range of start-ups from among ISPO’s 150 innovations. These included what’s known as a robotic, powered exoskeleton meant for tired hikers.

“[Exoskeletons] are mostly known from military, industrial or medical uses,” a representative from Hypershell, the China-based company that will soon start selling the kit, told WWD. “But the founders of the company love the outdoors and that’s why we’re here. We’ve mainly been to tech shows before this but it’s the kind of thing you can’t really explain. People have to try it.”

Earlier this year outdoor brand Arc’teryx unveiled a version of an exoskeleton for hikers, attached to pants, that will go on sale next year for around $5,000. Hypershell’s version isn’t attached to any clothing and looks mostly like a very complicated safety belt with knee braces. It’s likely to cost around $800.

“It doesn’t really push you,” one curious attendee commented, after donning the exoskeleton and walking briskly around the stand. “It just kind of makes it less effort [to walk],” he said.

The exoskeleton was really just the tip of the ISPO’s technological iceberg.

Other exhibits ranged from apps to regulate your metabolism, enhance your planking exercises or improve online sales with 3D fitting rooms, to all sorts of sensors for what’s being called “exer-gaming.” This is where digital games are used to make exercising more entertaining and inspirational. The next step would be a gym filled with exer-gaming, one speaker at a panel suggested enthusiastically.

During an invitation-only presentation, Serlab Levent, a senior strategist at streetwear agency Highsnobiety, further explained the changing relationship between technology and the great outdoors.

“More than ever people are hyper-aware of their very technology-filled environment and they’re rejecting that, they see it as suffocating, so they’re doing things like going into nature with the phone switched to airplane mode,” Levent told an attentive audience. “But at the same time, technology is facilitating their outdoor activities.”

Levent gave examples like the exercise tracker Strava, online communities led by brands like On Running, or apps that allow adventurous hikers to discover new trails.

“That’s the paradox of the augmented outdoors,” she argued. “Seeing the outdoors as an escape from technology, but at the same time technology is allowing the cultural pioneer to explore in ways they have never done before [and] to enhance our experience outdoors.”

That is why a lot of the latest technology aims to fit more seamlessly into outdoor activity, causing only minimal disruption, Levent continued, namechecking Shokz earphones as just one example. These allow you to jog or cycle and listen to music while remaining safely aware of the ambient noise around you.

“Technology itself was never the problem,” Levent concluded. “It’s about the way we choose to use it.”

Sports meets fashion

In the past, ISPO has also often been a forum to check out fashion trends impacting sportswear. But with so much focus on sustainability and technology, four halls dedicated to myriad manufacturers, and then fewer big brands with big stands, the most fashionable area of the trade fair was the “Zeitgeist” hall.

Since 2022, Highsnobiety has been setting up a special section at ISPO called 520M — the platform that explores “the intersection of performance, fashion and culture,” and which takes its name from the highest altitude in Munich.

At 520M, a sparse, stylish exhibition area in white, complete with mirrors, showed off a small variety of new and covetable looks by Adidas from its Terrex range as well as from Asics, Hoka, Dolomite and Columbia, alongside a number of other of Highsnobiety’s boutique picks.

Beyond the 520M section, a rainbow colored basketball court was busy all day, every day, with visitors trying out their long shots to a hip-hop soundtrack.

Further along the hall was a first-time collaboration with ISPO by the Copenhagen International Fashion Fair, or CIFF, a Danish trade show. Brands showing included Revolution, Woodbird, Brgn and Arrk shoes, among other hip Scandinavian-styled offerings.

“A lot of our brands want to get into the German market,” Shane Baron Stennicke-Roensholdt, CIFF’s director, said about how the collab had come about. “Because it’s the first time we’re doing this, we don’t have the biggest expectations but we’re hoping to give visitors a new sense of inspiration and to work out how we can elevate this [our presence here] even further.”

“It is attracting a lot of attention,” Mareike Weaver, head of European sales for Norwegian bag maker D_b_, which was showing with CIFF, said of the brand’s new Aluula bag. It’s made from a recyclable, semi-transparent parachute nylon. “And a lot of people are stopping to look, to touch it. They’re intrigued by the material. I’m really happy about the level of interest,” she concluded.

“We’re getting lots of footfall and everybody is happy with that,” another of the CIFF exhibitors told WWD off the record. “But we’d like more buyers, we’d like to be doing more business.”

“The perfect [trade fair] format probably doesn’t exist,” Ask Holmegaard Jensen, CIFF’s brand scout and sales manager, said in reply to the criticism. “But I have the greatest respect for the way ISPO has helped both minor and major brands develop. And I think this idea of building small communities is really good, it’s a clear concept that makes it easier for buyers and visitors.”