Outdoor Retailer - January 2021 - 75

#shoplife: Virtual Events

Land of Stories

Alpenglow Sports' virtual speaker series hopes
to raise $350,000 for nonprofits with a robust
lineup of outdoor athletes. by Helen Olsson

Photo courtesy Alpenglow Sports

WITH PANDEMIC RESTRICTIONS IN FULL FORCE, CALIFORNIA'S
Alpenglow Sports needed to reinvent its popular Winter Speaker Series,
which has featured notable outdoor athletes like Alex Honnold, Hilaree
Nelson, Glen Plake, and Lynn Hill. The shop moved the event to an
online format after 14 years of traditional in-person speakers with live
audiences. (Remember when?) Surprisingly, Alpenglow found a silver
lining to going virtual.
" Our speakers series is a way to bring the community together to be
inspired by adventure storytelling, and raise some money for nonprofits
along the way, " says Brendan Madigan, owner of Alpenglow Sports.
In the first virtual event in the series, mountaineer Dave Nettle told
tales of being stuck in a tent in a remote mountain range for a brutal
10-day storm (the talk's tongue-in-cheek title: Sheltering in Place). In
mid-December, skier Cody Townsend attracted more than 1,300 virtual
attendees with his presentation on the Fifty Project-his attempt to
climb and ski 50 classic backcountry ski lines in North America. By going virtual, the events have been able to attract a global audience, with
viewers tuning in from 10 countries for those first two shows. " You hear
a lot about screen fatigue right now, so we were surprised that so many
people tuned in, " Madigan says. " It speaks to the power of connection
and community energy. "
The events are free, though participants can buy raffle tickets to win
swag from brands that include The North Face, Norrøna, Leki, and
Salomon. With giveaways like skis and avalanche backpacks, the series
easily surpassed its fundraising goals, raising $50,000 per event for local nonprofits such as the Boys & Girls Club, the Tahoe Fund, and Sierra
Community House. Alpenglow hopes to raise a total of $350,000 for
nonprofits this year through the Winter Speaker Series.
" There have been a lot of defeats during COVID, but coming together to celebrate the power of adventure storytelling with a global audience-inspiring people to chase their own dreams-that's a victory, "
Madigan says. " In our eyes, a mountain shop should function as a hub of
the community. We have a moral imperative to connect with people on a
human level-it's not just selling things. "

" Our parents raised us pretty unconventionally, " Collinson says.
When she was 6 and her brother was just 4, they climbed Mount
Rainier. " When we were growing up, there were three swear words we
could never say: 'mine,' 'I can't,' and 'idiot.' " The next summer, at 7, she
climbed all the volcanoes in the Pacific Northwest and California, including Shasta, Baker, and Hood.
With pandemic lockdowns limiting travel, Collinson spent time
this summer in Maine working on a sailboat with her boyfriend, Pete
Willauer. They plan (someday) to sail to coastal communities in the
South Pacific to document social and environmental change. This winter, Collinson is hunkering down in Salt Lake City, skiing at Snowbird,
her home mountain.
Following Collinson on the docket are extreme skier Ingrid Backstrom
(Feb. 4), who will speak about extreme sports and motherhood; and
adaptive athlete Vasu Sojitra (Feb. 25), who will introduce audiences to
the sport of " ninja-sticking. " In 2014, Sojitra became the first amputee to
summit Wyoming's Grand Teton without a prosthetic limb.
Each event is produced by Wildbound Inc. with a high production
value designed to elevate the virtual experience beyond the usual Zoombased talking heads. All programs are free with registration (at alpenglowsports.com) and can be watched during the live premiere or at a
later date. A live athlete Q&A will follow each show. O.R.

THE NEXT EVENT IN THE SERIES WILL BE HEADLINED BY TGR FILM
mainstay Angel Collinson (Jan. 7), who will share stories from an adventurous childhood spent living out of a van and backpacking across the
West. A former big mountain competitor, Collinson was the first woman
to win Powder magazine's Best Line award for footage of her ripping a
steep Alaskan spine.
January 2021/ OUTDOOR RETAILER 75

http://alpenglowsports.com http://alpenglowsports.com https://www.alpenglowsports.com/winter-speaker-series/

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