AUSTRALIAN TRADE SHOWS
The RAT Show was held at The Rydges Gold Coast
The first RAT Show and the first surf focused trade show I can remember in Australia, ran in January this year. Held in late January, at the Gold Coast, the show brought together a lot of brands and retailers from within the surf industry. Many saying it’d been before Covid since they’d seen a lot of brands, people, beers all in one spot like this. It was nice to see similar format booths/sizes so it’s not like a dick swinging contest, much like later days Agenda/ASR shows. Funnily enough, it was the bigger brands I spoke with who said they loved that the most.
The RAT show is a cooperatively operated tradeshow event that connected Australian and New Zealand retailers with the best boardsports/lifestyle brands in our region. It was held access two days at the Rydges Gold Coast Airport Hotel and given it was their first show, it delivered a celebration of surf culture that was highly productive, informative and entertaining. This initial show felt more like a branding/industry building exercise for those with established distribution, but there was some opportunity for newer brands, who would've been able to expand their footprint in terms of business. Booths were bland and same same for the most part, which was by design. No need for this to become a dick swinging booth design comp when the objective is product, sales and relationships. The booths that did stand out were the ones who worked their main brand colour into the design - Ritual (red), RAGE (purple) and Florence (yellow). Would hate to see it become a SBIA or SIA thing, as it would get a lot of the personality sucked out of it. And we don’t want it going the route of ASR either, where it was too much. My thinking is brands who go again in the June show will learn from this one, there’ll be more retailers there and the RAT show will become something that helps usher in the next phase of the surf industry. Overall, as down as it is right now, it’s also an exciting time in the industry. Both Vissla and Sisstr had a great show, writing up plenty of orders and being busy both days. As one of the last few bigger independent brands out there, these guys have both a huge opportunity to cement themselves and also show the industry how to manage growth without being too big and going bankrupt. I like the brains behind the brand/s here in Aus, have learnt a lot from John and am excited for their future. Rusty and Rhythm seemed to buck the trend of old brands being dead, with both their booths being full both days. Have heard multiple times that Rusty’s sales at retail have been solid for the last period. Upstairs there was energy around Roark, James (huge fan of this brand, their entire product catalog is amazing imo), Oneill, Epokhe and more. I thoroughly enjoyed seeing Florence and …lost surfboards up-stairs, one I’m a fan of both brands and two, Mayhem dropped an entire 12 board collection. Highlights were a re-do on the Sabotaj model, the Cheyne Horan model and also a really interesting Quad called the Mod Quad. Tenore showed up, which I think surprised a lot of people considering nothing really has been signed out here. Their US sales team came out, shook some hands, met some retailers and got the lay of the land. I was semi out to lunch on this brand until this show, can confirm their product is solid and feels amazing in hand. They just gotta sort the pricing issue… New wetsuits coming in from Quiksilver and Volcom had both Tim and I all ears in their booths and ready for some colder water. And we got told Patagonia will be employing a familiar, yet new for them, entry system in their suits next year. Rip Curl were showing off new boardshorts including updates to the Activate, MF and Medina styles. The Medina boardshorts were really impressive in hand, the new MF also impressive but I am most excited for the new wetsuits from them… Would've been good to see more hardware brands there, because I'm a surf geek and like looking at the stuff over t-shirts. The surfboard brands that did show up included JS Industries, …lost Surfboards and Bell Surf, whereas wetsuits had representation from O’Neill, Volcom and Quiksilver. Rage looked great and probably has one of the biggest opportunities right now. Branding is on point, team/crew is on point, product is good - just need a bit of luck on the biz side and they could take off. We have been told there will most likely be a dedicated hardware section of the show in June. Oh and for the first time, in my memory, there was a dedicated kids brands for surfwear. Youthh is a brand for the kids being driven by Dean Morrison and some mates, they already have the U/14 Aussie Champ on their books and also booked in a few retailers too. Overall, a lot of the brands I’ve spoken to post-show have said it was worthwhile and wrote up a decent amount of business. Tim and I were both amped on it, and are excited for the next one - 12/10 would recommend attending. Next one should be around June sometime, I think… Check the RAT Show site for more details…
