TRE (The Running Event) – What am I Looking For, and Why am I Going

1 December 2025

Full transparency up front: The real reason as to why I will be in San Antonio, Texas for this year’s ‘The Running Event’ is that I am going on behalf of the Trail Running Film Festival. I’m here to drum up support for and raise awareness about our upcoming global film tour. I skipped it last year, thinking that the ROI hadn’t been worth the expenses for our small nonprofit. This year I am swinging for the fences again, hoping that our increased name recognition will help with me getting some proper face-time with the right folks who care and can help us grow TRFF into a global recognized film tour. We’re getting there and have the ambitions to match, but need brand partners by ours side to believe in this just as much as we are.

This year though I wasn’t able to get a badge on behalf of TRFF but needed to use my media credentials for Electric Cable Car to get my badge. As badge will say ‘media’ I thought I spend a moment thinking about what I am hoping to see at TRE, what I will be looking for are the industry is heading towards the new year.

So here are my bets for TRE 2025 – I am typing this on my flight to my layover in Las Vegas – you’re welcome.

What brands have the most buzz around their booth on the trade show floor.

Of course, this is what everyone is looking for and everyone will be talking about. It’ll be interesting for me to compare notes and see if I measure buzz in the same way as others. Will Satisfy shock us again? Will all other startup brands just copy Satisfy from last year? Will there be a new Satisfy? (God, I hate that I mentioned Satisfy three times in a row… so cliche…)

How much ‘trail’ will be in ‘running’ at TRE this year?

I wasn’t at TRE last year, but the overarching visual trend had been that ‘trail’ is the more photogenic sibling to running. But lately running fought back with gritty urban visuals evoking feelings of skateboarding and rural visuals of cowboys on ranches. Will there be a new trend or a doubling down on the same language? Switchback, the ‘outdoor’ portion of TRE has been growing over the past years, will be fun to see how much space – and attention – it’ll make up this year.

How will brands take advantage of their event and athlete sponsorship in their marketing through TRE?

It is always super fascinating to me how brands cash in on their athletes at events like these. Photos of them are on billboards, posters, video walls, and there are countless “happy hours” with athletes actually present at their sponsors’ booth. A few years ago at Outdoor Retailer I got an autographed copy of one of Kilian’s book and shared a smoothie with him at the Salomon booth. Those were the days.

What brand event sticks out, beyond the official scheduled programming.

Activations at UTMB in Chamonix are crazy town, with every brand – official sponsors or not – doing something or another, from group run to film screening to athlete meetup to product giveaway. TRE is a B2B event and therefore a bit more lowkey, but the brands, especially the ones that don’t have a flashy product to showcase at their booths, are usually doing something to draw attention to themselves.

Will the tariff madness be felt, and how will folks respond to being asked about it?

Let’s face it. The economy is a shit show and everyone is talking about it… except (especially American) businesses. Sure, you can say at weddings you should’t talk about funerals (is that something people say?), but these economic head winds are real and are affecting consumers, speciality retailers and product manufacturers. It will be a challenging needle to thread trying to get an anyone to be real about this, but I will try.

Will we get better charging cables from Suunto and Garmin?

I know that with longer battery lives watches don’t need to be charged that often, but the latest iteration of charging cables suck terribly. This has been a long hobby horse of mine and I was just recently told that it’s not just a Suunto issue but Garmin has the same problems. Will be fascinating to see if they realized that badly copying the Apple Watch charger isn’t great.

Better colored shoes

I am a huge fan of brightly, boldly colored shoes. But it takes someone with a good design sense to come up with the color combination that’ll make a shoe not look like a clown car. Startup brands are solving this by going ‘urban’ releasing their shoes in solid blacks, beige, and white. And while the latest trend in running clearly has been inspired by urban streetwear in the shoe color department you can tell that streetwear shoe designers still have the edge. Let’s see which shoe looks coolest.

What Running accessory is Most-Improved

GPS Watches leveled up over the last few years with great battery life and super visible screens. Shoes have now everything in them short of an electric motor. What’s the product that feels like it could actually improve running and make it more fun (yeah, yeah, and faster of course) and what product is just an overpriced shirt with holes in it?

The Best Espresso on the showroom floor at the Diadora booth

Every year I’ve been the Diadora booth hires a real barista who brings a real especially machine from a real coffee roaster from the East Coast. It’s delicious coffee the the barista slinging the beans the perfect antidote to the endless barrage of “here’s why our socks are worth $30” and “we’ve developed the bestest superfoam any foot has ever laid toes on”. I hope he’ll be back, I don’t know what I will do if I have to rely on automated push button coffee for the week.

Alright that’s it, time to pickup my badge and head into the madness… see you out there. (And actually, if you are in town for TRE, do send me a note, would love to meet up.)