Celebrating the Outside: Exploring Denver’s First Outdoor Focused Festival
By Charlotte Ege, FestForums | July 16, 2024
Against the breathtaking backdrop of the Rocky Mountains in the vibrant setting of Civic Center Park, Outside Festival is a flourishing celebration of all things outdoors. Held in Denver, Colorado, the first annual Outside Festival boasted an incredible lineup headlined by Thundercat, Fleet Foxes, and Andrew Bird, along with film showings presented by Columbia sportswear and a climbing center with three climbing walls presented by The North Face. This festival is no doubt the perfect conglomeration of art, food, music, culture, recreation and love for nature.
Taking place from June 1-2, Outside Festival is the brainchild of Conor Hall, the head of the Colorado Recreation Industry Office, collaborating with Outside Inc., a media company focused on the outdoor recreation industry.
Drawing around 18,000 attendees this past June, this is the first event of its kind in the outdoor retail industry as it went beyond the trade shows that dominated this landscape. Hall visualized an event that would take promotion of the outdoor recreation industry to the next level, and would fill the void left by the Outdoor Retailer Show that previously moved back to Salt Lake City. Working with Outside Inc., Hall saw this void as an opportunity, devising a festival that would combine the community, live performance atmosphere, and cultural celebration with the showcasing and networking opportunities of trade shows, drawing in both businesses and consumers. Hall’s goal for the festival was for it to be a “gathering place and melting pot” for this industry, to the likes of South by Southwest. It would be an open space for people to come together to celebrate, well, the outside - beyond just business promotion and retail.
In Denver, 18% of the workforce comes from the outdoor and recreation industry, making it a huge part of their economy and community, with over 500,000 jobs coming from this sphere alone. It is not a shock that this industry brings in over $62 billion to the state every year, given the gorgeous mountain landscape, extensive range of parks and trails, and a strong community of outdoor enthusiasts, which make it the perfect hub for this kind of event.
Other notable experiences at Outside Festival included the Travel and Adventure Hub, where attendees could gain insights on planning and navigating outdoor trips, from weekend getaways to backyard expeditions. There was also the Out & Back tent where you could trade in old outdoor gear for instant cash while they resell it for you. John Doran, chief entertainment officer of Outside Inc., "It’s really six festivals in one…We’ve got speakers, we’ve got the films, we’ve got the music, we’ve got climbing walls and dog tricks. There’s a little bit of something for everyone.” Showcasing the best of retail innovation in the outdoor recreational industry as well as the arts and music culture surrounding it, Denver’s Outside Festival is a flourishing success that epitomizes the vibrant community that dominates this industry.