The Sea Otter Classic Announces its First Ever Industry Day

It’s a sentence we never expected to have to write. Not because it’s shocking or terrible, just because we always assumed Sea Otter already had an industry day. Isn’t the entire thing an industry day?

Apparently not. The first-ever Sea Otter Classic Industry Day will take place on April 20, 2023. We’d be making a 4/20 joke here, but we’ve also received a press release about something called D Curve and we need to save all our immature comments for that one.

What makes this an industry day instead of whatever they call the rest of Sea Otter? They say it’s all about the “VIP tours, a networking social and a one-day intensive retail workshop presented by the National Bicycle Dealers Association with group discussions on business foundations, store layout and design, service center profitability, and customer acquisition.”

We miss those days. Especially those carefree dinners paid for by someone else. And we won’t be back anytime soon, because Life Time mentions “Qualified attendees.” No chance we qualify in 2023.

Those qualified attendees will join over a hundred retailers already registered for Industry Day, which comes with a complimentary four-day Expo pass covering 20-23 April. Apparently, that pass “enables a front-row seat to embed with consumers attending the event and engage with brands and vendors,” which sounds like a complicated way of saying you’ll get to meet people.

Attendees are also invited to take part in the second annual Sea Otter Classic Summit which occurs just in advance of the Sea Otter Classic on April 17-19, 2023. The Summit is a global gathering of leaders from the cycling and outdoor industries. It’s basically where every bicycle manufacturer hashes out which order they get to use the one factory in China that makes all their bikes.

Fucking finally, industry members also will have the opportunity to purchase tickets for the Sea Otter Classic Summit Aquarium happy hour and dinner. This is allegedly “the capstone to the Summit.” We told you it was all about the free dinners. Rumors persist that there is a Kelp Forest exhibit with a view of leopard sharks, wolf eels, and swirling sardines.

They really pushed it with that last detail, so we’re not writing any more about it. If you qualify to attend, please send us some photographs so we can write jokes about the event.