Outside Joins the Festival Landscape

From the promo website:

At Outside, we’re on a mission to get everyone outside. That’s why we’re launching the Outside Festival—an all-new way to inspire, educate, and get more people to experience everything the outdoors has to offer.

Look, I want to love this. One thing I miss about our trade shows (TRE, OR) is the consumer aspect. These shows are just for industry professionals, and thus they feel a bit stuffy. In Europe I experienced lots of shows/events that were both: First couple of days for trade professionals, then over the weekend for consumers – this worked great. But I also recognize that in the US the distances are just too far and people just aren’t willing to travel to a consumer show for a couple of stickers and a t-shirt.

Kyle Frost’s new to me blog ‘Here & There’ has a few more details and thoughts on this:

The event is planned for the first week of June in downtown Denver, bringing together gear, music, film, consumers, and industry. The event will incorporate the “Big Gear Show” and a number of different ‘activation zones’ that brands can sponsor. 
…
It’s not the first time Outside has delved into a ‘consumer focused’ format. The Outside Experience, hosted in Chicago, was supposed to be “the ultimate urban-based active-lifestyle festival”.

And finally, my favorite line:

Serious question…who at Outside let this event landing page ship? Not a single “link” in the footer works, the ‘expand’ map overlaps content, I wouldn’t recommend using a hamburger menu here (that doesn’t close on click) and the mobile site is a strange amalgam of a responsive/desktop experience.

I found someone else looking at these little details… this warms my heart.