There will be an AFFTA endorsed trade show sometime in 2010, according to AFFTA board sources.
It won’t be run by Nielsen Media Group, which ran the FFR in recent years, according to both AFFTA and Nielsen (see separate announcements below).
Nielsen will integrate fly fishing into its Outdoor Retailer Summer Market event in August, in Salt Lake City, Utah.
AFFTA could possibly work with Chuck Furimsky, director of the Fly Fishing Show consumer events on a trade show–Furimsky is planning a separate industry trade show for fall 2010 to take place in Florida.
We expect that AFFTA will announce additional plans in the near future, and we will post that information at anglingtrade.com as it becomes available.
What does all this mean?
For starters, AFFTA is now free to communicate the status of its trade event plans to the media and other members of the industry. Contractual obligations restricted AFFTA from communicating on the status of its negotiations with Nielsen in recent months, and exploring other trade event options.
Nielsen, for its part, continues to emphasize a belief that the fly industry would be best served by assimilating with other markets, and that a stand-alone trade event is likely not financially feasible.
AFFTA, however, relies on the trade event as a major source of revenue… revenue used to support the various programs the organization executes in support of its mission, namely growing the sport of fly fishing. (According to sources, gross income for the 2009 event was somewhere @ $460,000, in 2007, gross income was over $700,000… exhibitor numbers went from 234 in 2007 to 146 in 2009).
The next few months will be pivotal in charting a new direction for the industry, its trade show(s), and the trade organization itself. And the role retailers play in determining how this industry finds common ground, and works in support of a larger objective–sustaining and growing the sport–is now greater than ever.
