We Went To The 1st Hamilton Adventure Expo!!

It was amazing!!!
Amazing vendors!
Amazing presenters!
Amazing food trucks!
Amazing attendees!
Amazing vibe!

www.hamiltonadventureexpo.com
https://www.freakofnatureco.com/
https://www.instagram.com/bowman_gear/
https://organicboatshop.com/
https://algonquinoutfitters.com/
https://campkitchenstore.ca/
https://www.instagram.com/beautyofthebackcountry/
https://adamshoalts.com/
https://www.careenaalexis.ca/
https://www.paddlelikeagirl.com/
https://kevincallan.com/
https://adotecgear.com/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Hello and good day, eh? Welcome to the Super Good Camping Podcast. My name is Pamela.

SPEAKER_01: 0:04

I'm Tim.

SPEAKER_00: 0:04

And we are from supergoodcamping.com. We're here because we're on a mission to inspire other people to get outside and enjoy camping adventures such as we have as a family. Today we are freshly back from the Hamilton Outdoor Adventure Expo. And so we just thought we would do a quick little debrief of our experience there.

SPEAKER_01: 0:22

Yeah, I don't even know where to start. In short, as If you've listened to the podcast more than twice, you are aware that I'm a backcountry nut. And the outdoor adventure community, certainly here in, specifically in Ontario, is robust. They're just a wonderful group of people. They're so supportive of each other. And they're just awesome people, like general, like across the board. And we got to... So last night was a very, very distilled version of... of those people.

SPEAKER_00: 0:55

Yeah, everybody was kind of all in one place. It was so great to put, for people that we haven't met in person before, put faces to Instagram accounts and YouTube accounts. Very much so, yeah. But also just to meet up again with people that we have met in person before. And yeah, we just sit around and yak and talk about outdoor adventures and family and work and whatever. In

SPEAKER_01: 1:18

between, like the show itself. So, all right. So just sort of a blow by blow.

UNKNOWN: 1:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:23

Thomas and I started out the day there. We actually came in on the Friday night for a bit of a networking thing. We got there, I want to say it was around 20 after 10, show opened at 10 o'clock. The lineup was way out to the parking lot. I was like, holy mackerel, man. I had no idea. I knew some of the numbers of sales and stuff like that, but I didn't paint that picture. Not that crazy, that enthusiastically there at opening. When we finally did get inside and start to work our way around the display area, the vendor area, It was busy, man, like in an everybody grinning their faces off kind of way. You know, vendors were happy that there were so many people there. And so many people were so thrilled to be checking out wares and stuff like that. For me personally, yes, putting faces to, sorry, putting physically meeting people that we know through various types of social media and people we've had on the podcast that we've never actually met in person. That was pretty cool. There's also other cool stuff. I mean, you walk in and right there was a, oh great, now I can't, the name blanks

SPEAKER_00: 2:36

on me. Falconry.

SPEAKER_01: 2:37

Yeah, they had a falcon, they had an owl. It's

SPEAKER_00: 2:41

like, oh, very cool. The birds were just so calm the entire time, like just sitting kind of on someone's arm and looking around and people taking pictures.

SPEAKER_01: 2:53

Yeah, no big deal.

SPEAKER_00: 2:53

Well, you know, Bretton and Jason, kudos to you guys because you chose such great vendors too. Like it was so tailored to the kind of things that we like to do?

SPEAKER_01: 3:04

Yeah, very, very much so. I mean, there were, there were folks that sell canoes. There were folks that sell kayaks. There were folks that rent that stuff. There were paddle makers. There were like, you know, Algonquin Outfitter was there and they have, they had some PFDs. They had some knives. There were, there were knife Makers there, you know, Tory Baird, Paddle Like a Girl was there doing the rah-rah for getting the ladies out there.

SPEAKER_00: 3:31

It was overlanding. It was

SPEAKER_01: 3:33

overlanding. There was hiking. There was trail running. People that take their, I'm pointing out, sorry, for those of you watching, what I'm pointing out is our fur baby. For people that take their fur baby with them, there was a whole harness booth where you could do multiple harnesses so that you could walk multiple dogs at the same time or have them out for a trek. So many cool things. Camp Kitchen was there, Tyler, you know, doing his twig stoves, did a cool demonstration outside. I cooked up a bunch of very, my jacket still smells really yummy. Yeah, they were overlanding. Oh man, what else? Well, so there's just, there's a hint. Britt and Tunis were there showing their leather work off. Will from Bowman Gear doing his custom-made packs. We met a cool couple that they make, I don't, I don't, competitive bag, might be the wrong term, to an ERSAC. They're actually in the process of getting one of their bags grizzly bear proof certified, meaning the bear cannot bite through it. I think there's a bunch of criteria. I may have a ridiculously long set of links at the end of this in our show notes or in the description for our YouTube version, but very cool stuff, like stuff I had no idea about. And then they had food trucks on the way to the presentations.

SPEAKER_00: 4:56

Yes, so you'd walk out of one building, the food trucks were there, and then walk into the other building for the presentations.

SPEAKER_01: 5:01

And in most cases, standing room only. And it was a big, big space. You

SPEAKER_00: 5:08

had awesome presenters. So you could run down because you were at them

SPEAKER_01: 5:12

all. I didn't catch them all because I was circling it. The first one I caught was at noon. It was Adam Schultz. It was definitely a standing only. Jay and Sherry from Beauty of the Bad Country. We met up with a bunch of our outdoor pals. Jay and I are not exactly tall folks. We got to stare at the back of people's shiny heads and listen to Adam Schultz tell his stories. But it was still fun, occasionally peek between a couple of heads. But that was a great presentation. We caught Karina, Karina Alexis. She had a great presentation as well. Tori Baird caught hers.

SPEAKER_00: 5:53

I got there on time to see Tori. Yeah, that was

SPEAKER_01: 5:56

excellent. She's an excellent, excellent storyteller. And she pays attention to... specific details i think that slipped past a lot of people and

SPEAKER_00: 6:05

she has some pretty excellent stories to tell she does some pretty excellent adventures you got some cool

SPEAKER_01: 6:10

stuff yeah uh and then we for us we finished out the presentations and then and then we saw kevin we saw kevin did a quick i think it was a half hour presentation it was a shorty for him but there are he's always fun if you ever get the opportunity to go go check that dude out he's he's good fun yeah and then back into the show thankfully it had quieted down a little bit so we actually got to stop and not interfere with people being vendors. So we got to actually yak with them a little bit like that, helped a couple of people load some stuff out and bugged off. And then the content creation community, it's not entirely, I don't know what the parameters are, despite the fact that I set some of the stuff up. A bunch of us, it's somebody else started a trend of us getting together at the end of a show at some point. And that person wasn't here at this show. So between Brett and Brett helped out getting us the venue. Alex from Tents and Timber made a made a lifesaving spreadsheet for me to use. And I just did a couple of invites. We got a bunch of people together at the end of at the after the show for for Beers and Wings and whatnot. And and to just sit and yak with them in person like that's that's the coolest thing is like real live entertainment. touch them and go wow you're real you're not just a pretty face on on a video of you know a drone shot or whatever it's it's

SPEAKER_00: 7:40

i want to hear about their real lives too so i mean yeah we we're privy to being able to hear about how work went and how the kids are doing uh versus just what they what the edited reality

SPEAKER_01: 7:52

the unedited reality yeah yeah very much so and uh Yeah, I mean, again, back to if you've listened to more than two of our episodes, you know that that kind of thing is definitely my jam and falls in there. This was a spectacular show. This was... Not too big, not too small, although I think I'm hearing rumors that it's going to be bigger next year.

SPEAKER_00: 8:14

For the first go-round. Fantastic. Everything, as far as I know, went off without a hitch. For the first go-round, that's

SPEAKER_01: 8:23

impressive. A ton of work. Kudos to Bretton and Jason and all the volunteers and to the vendors who made the trek from Ottawa or wherever because some of them made it Longer treks than that. Yeah. You know what? Thumbs up all around. I'm sure that there are some takeaways, like lessons to learn for next year. They certainly weren't very obvious if they were obvious at all. That was for an inaugural show. That was absolutely amazing. Everybody, like the thing is, so we're back. It's noon on the day after. And I have done... I put in more thumb mileage on my phone than I do normally in a week. Everybody is just ecstatic about how that went off yesterday. And they're all, you know, making posts about, oh, thanks so much. And, you know, cool pictures. And like, I'm just, I'm thrilled. This is the thing for that outdoor community.

SPEAKER_00: 9:26

And I'm sorry, but if you're interested, you have to wait a year.

SPEAKER_01: 9:29

Yeah. They won't be putting them on monthly or anything like that. Oh, man, I can't imagine.

SPEAKER_00: 9:34

Although the Toronto Outdoor Adventure Show is coming, so...

SPEAKER_01: 9:37

Right, which has a lot of the same elements. It has... It has a bunch of other things going on for it as well, or going on at it as well, but it does have a lot of the same elements. There'll be a bunch of similar vendors. Some of them will actually be the same vendors, but at least a handful of the same presenters, although they run two stages, so there are more presenters, but I'm pretty sure Adam Schultz is there again. I'm pretty sure Kevin Callen is there again. And just off the top of my head, you know, Hap Wilson will be there. I think Ben Beauchamp is... presenting it this one

SPEAKER_00: 10:11

camper christina

SPEAKER_01: 10:13

camper christina is doing at least two shows that i remember spotting when i was looking through it yeah it's i it's also a show i highly recommend

SPEAKER_00: 10:21

if you're there and you see somebody with a super good camping shirt on come up and shake his hand say hi to him

SPEAKER_01: 10:26

well and

SPEAKER_00: 10:27

he loves that

SPEAKER_01: 10:28

but occasionally other people wear our shirts so that they look at them what are you doing away from me do i look like that ugly goof yeah no i do that was a weird thing that happened yesterday too was people coming up and going, hi, Tim. I'm not used to being recognized. I'm certainly not. Somebody came up and said, it was your voice I recognized. And Thomas said, well, he's been talking all day. Pretty hard to miss that. It's my kids sometimes. Yeah. You know what? So two thumbs up. That's literally, if you missed it, if you saw it, Make sure you put up posts. Make sure it's a positive thing so that there's no question that it's going to happen next year. I can't imagine from the success of this that it doesn't happen next year. And yeah, you know, look for it. I wouldn't be surprised if they do it like that. Felt like a good sort of window of time like that, that sort of late January thing. the people, the peoples were available to do the show. Right. So that's, that's a cool thing. And nothing else was really going on. You weren't interfering, you know, competing against any other shows or anything like that. So yeah, it's full on success. This was a, this was a good one.

SPEAKER_00: 11:46

All right. That's it for us for today. Please do. If you are in Toronto for the outdoor adventure show, come up and do say hi and we'll be there. We'll be there. I'll be there Sunday, probably. You'll be there.

SPEAKER_01: 11:57

Well, Thomas, historically, I will not be there for the duration. I won't do Friday. But I will, unless something comes up that I'm not anticipating, I'll be there Saturday and Sunday. Thomas and I will do Saturday for sure. You and I will do Sunday for sure. Thomas may tag along on Sunday. I seem to think he's got some other plans for Sunday. But... You know, yeah, we're wandering around. We're checking things out. I love the presenters. I love to hear their stories and take away nuggets of knowledge for future backcountry trips or future anythings.

SPEAKER_00: 12:35

Yeah, so we'll hopefully talk to you there. If not, we will talk to you again soon on the podcast. If you would like to talk to us, please do email us. We are at hi at supergoodcamping.com. That's hi at supergoodcamping.com. And Tim's thumb will get to work on Instagram if you want to message us on there. If you want to like, subscribe, comment on YouTube. We love all the things. Thanks. We'll talk to you again soon. Bye.

SPEAKER_01: 12:59

Bye.