The Oberalp Group, the international mountain sports company headquartered in South Tyrol in northern Italy, is responding to the current restrictions by organizing the Oberalp Convention as a digital event, open to all for the first time. Highlighting the summer 2021 introductions from Oberalp Group brands including Salewa, Dynafit, Wild Country, Evolv and Pomoca, the “ambitious project” will go beyond talks and presentations, said the company, with simultaneous translations, 360° showroom tours and live chats.
The live event starts on May 20, 2020 at 17:00 CET. The main theme of the event is “Tomorrow’s Mountain Sports Pillars.”
The virtual gathering kicks off with a one-hour live opening by the brand managers from each individual brand. As the convention is for an international audience, interpreters will be on hand to provide simultaneous translation. The group and the brands Salewa, Wild Country (Bolzano, Italy), Dynafit (Aschheim, Germany) and Evolv (Los Angeles, USA) will be providing information using all available online measures, including live show, live presentations and web chats via a website at http://convention.oberalp.com.
Online participants will have access to 360° tours through the showroom collections and product managers will be presenting new products and innovations for Summer 2021 in on-demand videos. Workbooks and lookbooks will all be available to download, while further product details can be viewed in online product tutorials.
Directly following the grand opening, brand and product experts will be on hand to respond to individuals’ questions in chat rooms. Twenty representatives from the Oberalp brands will be available around the clock for 48 hours via virtual contact. This means that partners from all time zones will have their questions answered, said Oberalp executives.
Brand representatives also will be discussing the future of mountain sports after Covid-19 and presenting the pillars that will be important for future development. In addition to company information and statements, the brand managers will also be outlining specific measures.
Dynafit is presenting, among other things, an initiative to boost specialty retailer sales in the current period, including with the campaign “Run for your local dealer.”
For Summer ’21, Salewa is focusing on its Alpine Hemp collection and making a long-term commitment to a local circular economy aimed at eliminating waste and using natural resources to make sustainable products. To this end, the company is investing 10 percent of turnover from sales of its Alpine Hemp apparel into local cultivation of the natural fiber, and regional production and manufacturing of products.
“We are exploring new paths and pioneering new ways with our virtual convention, as the first mountain sports company to deliver a purely virtual product and collection presentation. This important step demonstrates our continuity and commitment, despite these turbulent times, and also makes our new Summer 2021 collections clear and transparent to end consumers,” explained Christoph Engl, CEO Oberalp Group. “We are enabling our partners around the world to look to the future in this challenging economic period and to plan ahead and prepare for business in the coming year, despite the current restrictions.
“The Oberalp Virtual Convention is one of a number of measures that we were able to organize at short notice,” continued Engl. “For Salewa and Dynafit, we are extending around 80 percent of items in this year’s summer collection into the following year. As such, we have decided to offer a very high percentage of carry-over products for 2021. This will protect and increase in value the investment that retailers have made in our Summer 2020 collections for both brands.”
Photo: Online participants will have access to 360° tours through the showroom collections; credit: Storyteller Labs/DYNAFIT
