The OMA Media Show is an industry event held biannually at the Outdoor Market Alliance for public relations and media representatives to catch up on life, work, and upcoming gear for the seasons ahead.

The first OMA Media Show, then known as the Denver Media Show, materialized out of emails and Zoom calls in September 2022. As of 2025, we are seven iterations in figuring out how PR representatives and media can efficiently and effectively meet to further their professional agendas and expand their personal networks. Continue reading for a look under the hood at how we are creating a self-serve model for industry professionals through collaboration between competitors at OMA.

Location: Outdoor Market Alliance, Lakewood, Colorado
2026 Dates: February 25-26 & July 15-16
Join us: 2026 Brand Invite / Media Registration

Writer adrienne Jordan meeting with Tyler Maheu from Polartec and Abi Youcha from Akimbo PR during the Summer 2025 Media Show.

Tracing It Back To Outdoor Retailer

For decades, Outdoor Retailer (OR) was the center of the North American Outdoor Industry calendar, facilitating business transactions and providing space for invaluable in-person meetings, career connections, and friendships that were foundational to the communities within the Outdoor Industry. However, at its core, the biannual trade show prioritized spectacle over industry development, rewarding brands for their investment in OR via costly booths and side shows on the floor and around town. Additionally, shifting brand priorities towards e-commerce over wholesale, changes to the show schedule, protests over public land policy in Utah, and the loss of anchor brands, akin to Interbike, diminished its relevance for media. Despite a brief hope with the move to Denver, COVID ultimately burst OR's bubble, leaving empty floor space where there had once been the connective tissue of a vibrant industry as a result of the Pandemic market whiplash. As the COVID-19 vaccine became readily available in mid-2022, people returned to offices and resumed indoor activities, bringing the pandemic-driven rush on outdoor gear to a close. According to the Outdoor Industry Association (OIA), the surge in outdoor activity, both on the trail and at the buy button, leveled off after years of consistent growth, and consumers’ average number of annual outdoor outings dropped by almost 7% in 2022 and by another 11% in 2023 (Buhay, 2025). In the same year, the OIA severed its ties with OR after a 30-year partnership, thereby unhooking the organization, which represents over 4,000 manufacturers, distributors, suppliers, sales representatives, and retailers, from the trade show. Then last year, OR declared it would drop to just one show per year, combining its summer and winter shows into a single annual event, ending its seasonal cadence. The disintegration of the show has left industry players with a gap in how to fulfill not only their professional obligations, but also a place to make new connections and expand their network within the industry.

When the Pandemic forced traditional events to pause, many of us adapted as best we could to a fully digital workflow. PR agencies, seeking new ways to introduce gear en masse to media, experimented with online presentations, a departure from previous in-person methods like OR, New York showrooms, and press trips. One model brought together multiple PR firms' clients and emulated a stage show, giving brands and PR reps a set time to present to a faceless media audience. (More about REVEAL here.) While it lacked the impact of real-life interaction, it proved that multiple PR agencies could collaborate to reach larger audiences through sharing contacts and concentrating their clients, and that media benefited from concise, product-focused overviews without the spectacle of a large tradeshow booth.

Elsewhere in the outdoor industry, six sales agencies initially sharing space in the Denver Merch Mart created a new, expanded venue: the Outdoor Market Alliance (OMA), partly due to the necessity of finding a new home as the Merch Mart owners were retiring. This new shared showroom space now houses 24 agencies representing over 175 brands across the Rockies. On an initial visit with a client, Dave Simpson of Verde Communications recognized its potential for PR purposes, given the concentration of brands and alignment with seasonal product cycles. Although many PR agencies hosted their own New York showrooms, these were typically not collaborative, and no Western counterpart existed to cater to journalists living along the Front Range and throughout the Intermountain West; it had been unnecessary during peak OR. Simpson began contacting others to gauge interest in jointly hosting media at OMA’s showrooms. Within weeks, Exact Change and nine PR agencies quickly organized the inaugural (Denver) Media Show at OMA in summer 2022. This new model emphasized face-to-face meetings with product in hand, free from the distractions of a trade show floor or the hurried nature of typical New York showroom events that catered to media's before- and after-work schedules. The new event was also beholden to no one; it was the creation of those involved and hosted by a nonprofit collective of sales agencies, many of whom shared the same clients or accounts with the PR agencies. Together we are learning how to OMA.

Tu Nguyen from NESTOUT staying on schedule mid-power outage during the Winter 2025 OMA Media Show.

How to OMA (Oh-em-ay)

The Outdoor Market Alliance supports business development by concentrating energy and attention through the collaboration of competitors, or co-opetition. This requires bringing together people who are capable of a dual mindset, as Brandenburger and Nalebuff put it in their 2021 article in the Harvard Business Review, “The Rules of Co-opetition,” a concept they had written about starting in the late 1990s.

“That isn’t always easy, because people tend to think in either/or terms, as in either compete or cooperate, rather than compete and cooperate. Doing both at once requires mental flexibility; it doesn’t come naturally. But if you develop that flexibility and give the risks and rewards careful consideration, you may well gain an edge over those stuck thinking only about competition.” (Brandenburger & Nalebuff, 2021)

For the OMA member sales agencies, they save retailers and themselves time by centralizing with competitors, as the building’s primary purpose is to serve the resident sales agencies in hosting meetings with retailers from across the Rockies. Without any additional effort on the part of the sales agencies, a visiting retailer can meet with an outdoor store’s inventory of brands in a single visit, lowering the bar for motivation needed for a retailer to visit any one sales agency and increasing the chances of a visit from other retailers. This effect is amplified by OMA’s biannual market weeks, during which buyers review product lines en masse, saving time, expense, and disruptions for all parties involved. Despite PR being separate from sales in a typical corporate organizational chart, PR results improve brand awareness and affinity and ultimately improve sales, further benefiting OMA’s primary stakeholders and their brands. Simply by opening up their doors to PR agencies and pausing sales operations for two weeks out of the year to host the OMA Media Show.

Similarly, the OMA Media show provides media with two days to meet with 50 or more PR representatives in serial twenty-minute meetings, resulting in over a thousand meetings during the event. Unlike a full line presentation as expected in a sales meeting, these are conversations that center around the journalists’ interests and plans as much as the gear, as both parties discuss how featured products may be utilized in future articles, videos, or reviews. When media guests were asked why they make the effort to attend the show in person, 95% of respondents found that products simply make more sense in person, followed closely by that it was preferable to sitting alone at their computer, and, admittedly, they enjoyed having time with colleagues in person. Roughly half of the attendees are locals living along the Front Range and only need to make a minor detour from their routines to attend, while others fly in from afar. In 2025, this totalled 98 journalists, freelancers, and media producers working for over 100 different outlets, resulting in more than 2,500 face-to-face meetings with product in hand from the 82 participating brands, thanks to the collective effort of 20+ PR agencies. On average, each brand was able to book 25 appointments per show, comparable to a busy schedule at traditional trade shows, but in a streamlined and cost-effective event that drives demand for outdoor products. For the complete list of past participating brands and PR agencies, visit: OutdoorMarketAlliance.org

The Outdoor Market Alliance is a nonprofit whose mission is to support the broader outdoor recreation ecosystem in the Rockies. The OMA Media Show is the primary fundraiser for OMA, which in turn invests not only in the facility where the event is held, but also makes donations to support future development of recreation in terms of the people and places. Each year, OMA members nominate and vote on a variety of outdoor non-profit causes to receive funds. Since its inception, OMA has donated to various organizations that support outdoor communities, including SheJumps, the Continental Divide Trail Coalition, Protect Our Rivers, Save A Brain, Women’s Wilderness, and the Outdoor Lab Foundation. Although the OMA Media Show dodges all the additional spending typically found in a traditional trade show model, which could be framed as “economic activity,” it invests directly back into the ecosystem upon which the industry depends, as illustrated in the value net above that revolves around the outdoor recreation consumer. Neither PR nor Sales agencies are directly tied to the consumer; instead, they act as conduits for information and revenue that are dependent on their relationships with media and retailers.

In 2023, Outdoor Lab Foundation was awarded $20,000 to help support their efforts in taking Jefferson County 6th graders outdoors.

Creating a Self-Serve Model With Spreadsheets

Looking back on the creation and initial execution of the event, which involved nine PR agencies, the plan was to invite media to OMA and showcase new products, with the hope that it would pencil out. This remains the core purpose of the event today; however, we have now developed a system of spreadsheets to help facilitate those thousand meetings and ensure that all attendees have the opportunity to make the most of their time spent at OMA. During the initial events, the coordination of media invites and meeting schedules was conjured reflexively by people used to juggling contacts, samples, events, and follow-ups. However, it wanted its own place to live, an app that helps everyone both connect and navigate the show. After thorough experimentation on practical models for this, it was apparent that keeping up with the speed of technology of hosting platforms and browsers would incur significant ongoing costs. The most daunting hurdle was translating the nuance of the event into a user interface that would work seamlessly for attendees. It quickly became apparent that leveraging spreadsheets, specifically Google Sheets, was the most effective solution for managing each step leading up to the individual schedules being printed and handed to the media as they checked in and rolled into their first meeting.

To create the media invite list each year, participating PR agencies make time each month to meet to advise on event details, compile a list for outreach to media, and generally help shape the show for the year to come. As media register for the event, their registration information is piped into a scheduling workbook that is shared with all PR and brand reps. This scheduling workbook then informs each individual’s schedule. Initially, individual schedules were only generated for media representatives, but as of 2026, they will also be provided to brand representatives, along with a centralized list of contacts for everyone. All within a cascading Google Sheets ecosystem.

In the spirit of OMA, the draw of anchor brands and their PR agencies to pull on influential journalists generates a momentum that allows startup brands and young PR agencies to benefit from sharing the space and the expense of hosting media. As many publishers reduce staffing, more journalists are labeling themselves as “freelance,” so providing meals and ensuring free entry to the event is essential and the event's largest line item cost. By pooling resources from each participating brand, the contacts of each collaborating PR agency, and the audiences of media guests, the OMA Media Show completes the circuit to provide a venue in the West that we used to see at OR for one facet of the outdoor industry ecosystem.

Written descriptions are limited compared to actually getting hands on a product to understand how it may fit into the next adventure.

The Common Thread

Attendees at the OMA Media Show, much like the brands showcased, participate in a wide array of hobbies and outdoor activities. There is no predominant outdoor activity culture the majority of the crowd adheres to. Instead, what has fostered collaboration more than anything is that we all work within the outdoor industry. As many of us have heard others talk wistfully about leaving their “boring” jobs to come work in the outdoor industry, they may be thinking about the chances to get outside and label it as work. Or they may be envisioning working with exciting new gear every season. However, it is the work culture that is the real prize to be won by working in the outdoor industry. This is not to mean that there are not grudges between individuals and generally rough characters that can be hard to work with. Some of the most celebrated individuals qualify under both of those. However, it means that many of us recognize it is a small industry, and you will likely work with individuals, if not once, but potentially even multiple times throughout your career journey. Similarly, in a small industry, the old Roman adage of the “Gods walk amongst us” often holds. Especially when you first start, it can be challenging to understand how your interactions might reverberate, how the brands you work for can create opportunities later, and, most of all, how important it is to be open to participating in the broader outdoor community. Places like the Outdoor Market Alliance and events like the OMA Media Show embody this culture, and we are fortunate to have a place and event to call our own, where we can work on our career goals from season to season. How this will be reflected in the space in the years to come is yet to be seen; however, we will likely see other B2B conversations host meetings within the space, not only with direct connection to brands, but also destinations, government agencies, and tourism services that make the outdoors accessible and desirable. In the meantime, we will be at OMA talking gear to make outdoor experiences more comfortable and enjoyable in the seasons to come.

Images from over the past few years:

References:

Brandenburger, A., & Nalebuff, B. (2021, January 1). The rules of co-opetition. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2021/01/the-rules-of-co-opetition

Buhay, C. (2025, March 26). Inside the outdoor recreation industry’s boom and Bust. Outside Online. https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-gear/gear-news/outdoor-industry-layoffs/