Slate is making a big push with skate and action sports, so at the end of the second day I asked a few brands how the show went for them.
I also talked with some other brands that are not skate focused how the show was going so far.
I will say this: It may be the one of the few trade shows I have been to where I saw orders being written at many booths, including at Slate, Project, and all the other Magic shows.
It was the first time Ipath has attended Slate, and Key Account Executive Travis Matsdorf said he was quite pleased with how it was going.
Travis Matsdorf of Ipath.“We’ve been stacked with appointments,” he said.
“We’ve seen a cross section of retailers from around the world. From Journeys to an urban store in Atlanta, to CCS, to Active.”
Ipath also picked up some new accounts – boutiques, urban and lifestyle doors.
“We’ll definitely do it again,” he said. “We’re psyched.”
Luke Edgar of Skullcandy said the company’s been coming to Slate for about three years.
“It’s awesome for us,” he said. “We get to see a lot of dealers we don’t see in our usual action sports trade show circuits.
“This is really less action sports, more fashion. We are infants in this world.”
Traffic has been a little slow, he said, but Skullcandy has been steady with appointments.
Nike 6.0 brought its women’s line to Slate. John Pedati, who is in charge of Nike action sports sales for specialty stores in North America, said Monday was the busiest day so far and the brand had had 16 appointments.
He said the line is still evolving and trying to find its vibe so he couldn’t yet say if Slate is the right fit or if the brand would return.
“I’ll reserve judgment until the end of the show,” he said. “But I feel good about it for sure.”
Several brands, including Stussy, said the show needs to be earlier, especially with the Asian production pressures, which has led to earlier timelines for many.
“To make this more relevant to everybody, they’ve got to move this up two weeks,” said Scott Terpstra of Stussy. “We’ve booked a lot of our production already.”
See Page 2 for True Love & False Idols, Huf, O’Neill Clothing
It was the third Slate show for True Love & False Idols since the brand joined La Jolla.
Jim Shubin said the brand had seen a lot of international retailers, and a lot of boutiques that had dropped the line before it joined La Jolla are now coming back.
He said by 10 a.m. Tuesday (the show started Monday), they had set a brand record for orders written.
“Monday it was back-to-back writing POs,” he said.
At skate lifestyle brand Huf, the results were mixed.
The Huf booth on Monday.East Coast Sales Rep Scott Mackey said the first day was slower while Tuesday had been busier.
He liked that more skate elements were added, such as the Maloof High Ollie Challenge.
Huf had made appointments with retailers, and had met about six new walkup accounts by the end of the day Tuesday. They were mostly meeting urban boutiques and bigger name chain stores.
While skate retailers had been flown in for the contest, he said they mainly stopped by to say hello because they had already done most of their line viewing at Agenda.
West Coast Huf Sales Rep Keith Murray described Slate as more about street culture than skate and said they had been able to get more done at Agenda.
“We are here to do business,” he said. “There’s too much else going on here. It’s so loud, I’ve had to yell at my accounts.”
The two said they would sit down and analyze all the orders for the season to see where leads and orders came from before making any decisions about future shows.
Keith estimated it cost close to $20,000 to come to Slate with staff, accommodations and booth costs. It will all boil down to how much business was generated to offset that expense, he said.
It was the first time O’Neill Clothing attended Slate, and O’Neill was one of the few surf brands there. Vice President of Marketing Steve Ward said he was pretty pleased with how it turned out.
“Like many brands, we a navigating our way through the ever changing tradeshow landscape,” he said.
“Our strategy is simple. We are going where the retailers go. While the timing of the show isn’t ideal, it was a very productive show. It gave us valuable face time with many of our key partners to discuss business, show product and write orders.
“I can say fairly confidently that we will be back next show,” Steve said.
