We do not see DealerCamp as a direct competitor to Interbike whatsoever. Many mid-sized bicycle manufacturers will gear up in late July, early August, and roll out 2011 models to targeted retailers—one way or another—so they can be on the same plane as the A-tier companies, such as Trek, Specialized, Giant and a couple of others. DealerCamp is an effort to corral these companies together to find efficiencies for these manufacturers and the retailers who will be targeted to attend. This is the same strategy we had for PressCamp (albeit a different attending audience), where we had great success in 2009 and it looks even better for 2010.

How will DealerCamp be different compared to Interbike's Demo Days?
 

DealerCamp will be held in a world-class resort, with epic off-road riding, accessible by chairlift and joined by fantastic alpine road loops. The event will be just three miles from the retailer host hotel in Park City and can be reached by bicycle via a Rails-to-Trails bike path. Exhibitors will stay in condos even closer to the event, many within walking distance. Finally, the sheer number of
attendees and exhibiting companies will be less, providing a more intimate meeting of the industry. Most obvious, this product-testing experience will be timed so that manufacturers can get feedback and write orders at a critical time in the buying cycle. In addition, DealerCamp will be subsidizing travel expenses for a select group of retailers. This is akin to what the A-tier companies do with their private dealer events. We're trying to create a similar model where smaller companies can share this expense and all benefit.

Why don't you combine PressCamp with DealerCamp?

Journalists need to see new products in late June, by far the number one pick on our post-PressCamp 2009 survey. This timing allows them to get print stories into the September issues that are timed around the fall's big trade events. Any later than June and the window is closed and that opportunity is missed. However, manufacturers could never be ready to release new products presently in June, so they are requesting an event in late July or early August. Therefore currently it is impossible to merge the two events together. On top of the timing issue, we received overwhelming feedback that journalists appreciated the focus of
PressCamp and the fact that it made it easy to have quality time with manufacturers without having to compete with hundreds of other people. Manufacturers also appreciated the intimacy of PressCamp.

I am an exhibitor. What is the deadline for providing my top list of 100

retail businesses?
 

Submit your list in an Excel spreadsheet to [email protected] by March 15, 2010.

What kind of dealers will be on the targeted 100 list for DealerCamp 2010?

We see the list of retail businesses being made up largely by two groups:

1) Key retail businesses, from many large markets, whose bike lines include important “B-tier” brands as their bread and butter. If these buyers have an opportunity to see some or all of their primary brands at one time and in one place, at a critical buying decision time, all while receiving FREE lodging and a handsome travel subsidy, we are confident they will be very interested in attending.

2) Businesses that may have one or more “A-tier” brands, but also have several important “B-tier” brands to round out their offerings. This group will find that DealerCamp is an efficient and timely event to test, see and purchase the latest products from these companies.



Can you tell me now the names of the retail businesses and buyers that have registered for DealerCamp?