Outdoor Retailer lives on after Salt Lake City

Friction point: Show organizers announced the move last year after determining the Salt Palace couldn't accommodate it during a yearslong renovation.

Catch up quick: For decades, outdoor gear creators came to Salt Lake to display their innovations and convince retailers to carry their products.

• Twice a year, the summer and winter shows packed downtown with parties and music at the outdoor industry's biggest celebration.

Friction point: That changed after 2017, when retailers and vendors called for a boycott of Utah after the state's Republican leaders supported Trump's efforts to dismantle public lands protections, especially at national monuments.

• The show decamped to Denver for a few years and returned to SLC in 2023 — after the pandemic made in-person trade shows much smaller affairs in most industries.

By the numbers: Some 275 exhibitors are attending its first Minneapolis show, Axios' Kyle Stokes reports.

• During the pre-COVID shows, more than 1,000 exhibitors descended on SLC, and retailers erected multi-story booths.

The bottom line: SLC isn't the same without OR, but OR isn't the same either.