A Piece of the Action Expo

For a newborn brand, a booth at the Action Sports Retailer Trade Expo is a sign of legitimacy. The three-times yearly showcase for surf, skate, swim and street style attracts more than 7,000 buyers from around the world. But with booth fees, rentals, display materials and travel, it can easily cost $6,000 or more for an upstart company to attend. Once at the convention, it’s tough for a little guy to compete with the tattooed and body-pierced circus of bikini-clad models and merchandise giveaways that large manufacturers like Gotcha Sportswear and Billabong use to attract buyers. In the wake of the expo, which wrapped up at the Long Beach Convention Center on Monday, first-time exhibitors weigh in on the worth of their investment.

Going to the expo was a big step for B&A; Custom Stickers. The Boulder, Colo.-based business has been producing stickers with subversive sayings such as “I Love My Bong” for eight years. “It was an investment for sure,” says B&A; salesman Scott Sparks. “But the benefit is market saturation.”

Metry Sportswear, an urban line out of San Francisco, conveniently combines accessories into clothing. “‘We have a high-tech feel,” says Nathan Bellino, president and designer, showcasing his backpack sweatshirt to passersby. “All the buyers I need to see are right here.”

The 18- to 34-year-old generation has a love-hate relationship with technology that is expressed in many of the styles at the expo, including men’s T-shirts from Finetuning. The new company is a spinoff of the L.A.-based junior brand Fine. “This line is a way of getting out our frustrations and not being too cutesy, like we are with Fine,” explains art director Guy Brand. (Yes, that’s really his name.) One Finetuning shirt carries an image of a gas mask on the front. Underneath it says, “Face of the Future.” Other shirts picture today’s pop icons--DJs--and carry slogans like, “I love D&B;” (drum ‘n’ bass music, not Dolce & Gabbana, which it’s a parody of).

Greg Tomlinson works the convention like a well-oiled machine, high-fiving his “buddies” and giving away free T-shirts. As co-owner of a new San Clemente-based surfwear company called the Realm, Tomlinson is “stoked” about the number of international buyers. “People are coming in from Sweden, Holland, Singapore, Australia and Japan. Usually you have to turn over a lot of stones before you find those contacts.” The Realm is headed by Tomlinson and Craig Lark, both of whom have previous experience in the action sports market. Pro surfers Mike Parsons and Pat O’Connell are also partners in the business, which offers shorts, swim trunks, pants, jackets and knit tops.

“We invested a lot of money in a 20-by-20 booth and display. But we definitely got our bang for the buck.”

Nu Gruv Alliance was one of many first-time exhibitors that didn’t make it onto the convention floor. The San Francisco-based hip-hop T-shirt company’s booth was in the arena, where there is a fraction of the foot traffic. Chomping on a sandwich, NGA owner Bill Barren said, the expo “hasn’t been worth it for us as far as sales, especially in the spot they stuck us in. But we wanted to get our name out in the business.”

Next time will be different. “We’ll emphasize the hip-hop aspect and maybe have some break dancers. You kind of have to put on a show.”