Inside Outdoor Retailer 2026: brands, creators, and 15.6 million followers

Outdoor Retailer changed more than its address this year. The show moved to Minneapolis for the first time, rebuilt its floor plan around discovery and connection, and leaned harder into an idea that used to be a side conversation at these shows: brands don't just need buyers anymore. They need an audience.

Wild Reach, the creator program Popfly ran inside Outdoor Retailer, was one of the clearest signs of that shift. Participating creators reached a combined 15.6 million followers across all platforms, giving brands a real audience. 

Creator connections, powered by Popfly 

Outdoor focused creators were embedded directly into Outdoor Retailer this year, not sitting on on the sidelines. Each one was matched with exhibiting brands like Backcountry, Alpaka, PYNRS, and more ahead of time based on interests and content type. 

That matchmaking wasn't a spreadsheet exercise. It ran through our Popfly team, and showed up physically as a printed passport system in the Popfly Creator Lounge, where creators and brand reps got warm introductions instead of hoping to bump into each other near a booth.

As Matthew Mathiasen, group show director for Outdoor Retailer, said in that same June 23 announcement, trade shows can no longer get by on selling booth space and hoping brands find their audience. Wild Reach was built to close that gap, turning creator engagement into something coordinated instead of another thing marketing teams had to stitch together themselves.

Insights & learnings from the The Camp Stage

Popfly led  two panels this year on The Camp Stage.

The brand panel, "Every company is a media company: how outdoor brands are building their own audiences," took place on  Thursday and was moderated by our marketing lead, Maren Hamilton. Five speakers took the stage:

• Roberto Gutierrez, Director of Brand Marketing at Backcountry
• Gina Turpel, Director of Marketing at Osprey
• Neil Robinson, VP of Marketing at Outdoorsy
• Georgia Grace Edwards, Founder of Gnara
• Kayla Beckmann Barnhart, Social Lead at Teva

The creator panel, "The outdoor marketing playbook is being rewritten, are you keeping up," ran Friday, August 21 and was moderated by our founder, Taylor Hoekstra.

Speakers were: 

• Tim and Renee from ThruHikers
• Nadah Feteih
• Xavier Abdullahi

Key takeaways from Outdoor Retailer

1. Complaints can be more useful than compliments. A flood of five-star reviews tells you people are satisfied; one specific complaint tells you what to fix. Treat negative feedback as free product research, not as something to bury — the brands getting real signal from UGC are the ones actually reading their worst reviews, not just their best ones.

2. Forget likes. Watch the DMs. Demo sign-ups, product questions, people showing up to a community hike — these are the signals that predict revenue, not follower counts or engagement rates. Organic social rarely drives revenue directly, but the UGC that performs organically is a reliable predictor of higher ROAS once you put paid dollars behind it.

3. A brand is a personality, not a channel. Same person, different room — you dress differently for a sports bar than a Manhattan speakeasy, but you're still you. Backcountry's point: your tone should flex by platform without your identity changing underneath it.

4. Creator audiences convert faster because they're already sold. A creator's following isn't a cold audience you're introducing to your brand — it's people who followed because they trust that person's taste, which means they arrive pre-educated and receptive in a way paid reach never is. Treat that as a distribution advantage, not just a content source.

5. Paid alone doesn't scale anymore. Meta ad costs are up 12% year-over-year, and that trend isn't reversing. A paid-only strategy gets more expensive every quarter just to stand still — which is exactly why owned and organic content isn't a nice-to-have anymore. It's the hedge against costs you can't control.

Flapjacks, Finish Lines, and a Full Bar

The show floor wasn't the only place for engagement. Thursday morning, Urban Experiences led attendees through a deep dive into Minneapolis' local culture. Thursday night, the community gathered for the Pop Off with Popfly party, a packed two-hour mixer at Rabbit Hole hosted alongside Basecamp Outdoors. By Friday morning, Wild Reach creators joined Mill City Running for their staple Flapjack Friday run club, as well as the 57 Hours Adventure Race.

Why this matters beyond the show

Outdoor Retailer positioned itself as the industry's central hub this year, not just a trade show, and the new Minneapolis floor plan reflected that: dedicated zones for emerging brands, materials and design innovation, and community programming sat alongside the traditional product categories. 

Through a curated roster of creators and an audience reaching millions, Popfly provided these brands with tangible, quantifiable show-floor results while amplifying the development of long-term networks dedicated to brand advocacy. 

"Long-term partnerships outperform one-off campaigns for trust and results, everytime." — Taylor Hoekstra, Popfly