Episode # 24 - Matt Aiken

[00:00:00] Welcome to The Wing Life Podcast, where we talk about wing-foiling and the lifestyles of those who enjoy this great sport. Alright, hey Matt, thanks a lot for joining me in this show today. Stoke to be talking to a fellow Canadian that's in the wind sports industry.

[00:00:21] I think it's going to be pretty fun. Yeah, well, thanks for having me. Absolutely. So I guess we're about to start right now. I'm actually in my home office here in a tronocand, and it'd be just a bit warmer. Nice. Is there any wind shaping up?

[00:00:36] Normally our foils are pretty good at there. There's been a little bit of north winds, so not in the tronoc area, but yeah, last a couple days, people north have been getting sessions.

[00:00:44] And it was a bit of a funny start to the summer, but the last month's been pretty good here. It got to like the regular couple of cold fronts a week, regular weather systems rolling through the great lakes. So yeah, people have been getting sessions. Oh, cool.

[00:00:55] Yeah, my buddies that are on all the sand banks chats and stuff are going to probably start lighting up in the next month or so. Sometimes Kingston starts around this time. My buddy lives there too. So always a kind of transition month in the fall.

[00:01:10] Sometimes we'll start to get some strong systems. We'll also start to get, and there's kind of one brewing right now, why we don't wish for hurricanes to pummel the East Coast with US by any stretch.

[00:01:20] But when I want to tropical storm or hurricane moves up the East Coast, if it moves in land and heads kind of up the middle, we usually end up with a couple of really strong East Chilies through the Great Lakes, which is not the usual interaction followed

[00:01:34] by like a big walk past called front as the hurricane then gets pushed out to see. So again, not too wish any damage on anyone or anything like that, but like hurricanes coming up the East Coast is what really lights things up here in the Great Lakes.

[00:01:47] And there's actually one of the first ones of the season coming right now. So it was probably going to be for all the people in the Great Lakes, some pretty big areas as that kind of moves up. Okay, nice.

[00:01:57] We have rocktober to look forward to not too far off. So October of course can be sort of the heaviest month out here in the water still kind of warm and that's kind of like our best time here.

[00:02:07] Oh yeah, before we get that big switch where it kind of, when the first Northeast or something comes through and jumbles everything, then it went from at Sandbank, it went from super warm till like extremely cold the next day.

[00:02:19] It was crazy how quickly that's going to get our proper lake turnover and all the cold water from the bottom of the lake comes up and then it's time for booties and no fun.

[00:02:27] And for winter, well hey Matt, when I guess for a variety in set home here who is meeting you for the first time could go a little bit into into your story. I read up a little bit and you started water sports at a pretty young age.

[00:02:41] I'm sure this is a pretty cool story behind that. Well, I don't know how cool it is, but thanks for asking, but I actually started working in a wind surfing store when I sort of in that like 17, 18 year old range and I worked, you

[00:02:51] know, I worked a wind surf retail, you know, off and on all through a tail end to high school right through university. And I was sort of like, you know, summers was working half the summer at the shop

[00:03:03] and then half the summer either at Cabarette or a hood river and, you know, driving around and, you know, camping and hood river and, you know, trying to, trying to progress my wind surfing as much as I could. But that was all through a university.

[00:03:16] I was just chasing a wind and competing admittedly at a not particularly high level but competing a bit on wind surfing and, you know, living, trying to chase that dream a little bit. And then when I finished university, I actually kind of landed what seemed like was going

[00:03:29] to be my dream job. I got a job working for the publisher of WindSport Magazine which was a Canadian based wind surfing magazine. So I remember like my first day on the job, my boss was like, I'll do you bring your gear

[00:03:40] and of course, it's in my car all the time and we were like down at the beach doing a photo shoot, you know, shooting, you know, wind surfing shots for a test in the magazine. And so I'm like, oh my god, this doesn't get any better right?

[00:03:51] So that job actually kind of progressed pretty interesting path where, you know, some good timing with the main publication. There was a snowboard magazine, snowboard Canada magazine and, you know, the sort of

[00:04:05] that whole industry, we sort of will be a snow surf, you know, snow skate surf sort of culture as a group. And has that industry started to fire up and start to extend into a peril and, you

[00:04:18] know, the mall shops popping up and all that we were able to add magazines. And where we started with just the wind surfing magazine and the snowboard magazine, you know, we ended up with 10 different titles, nine consumer titles.

[00:04:30] We had a skateboard magazine, weightboard magazine, surf magazine, ski magazine, I tried to go to a missing gear and of course, a kite surf magazine. You know, I was running the advertising sales department for this and I think at one

[00:04:43] point, I think we had, I think our whole advertising sales department was like six people. The company was like 35 something like that. People. And yeah, we became like this sort of multi-titled sports publisher and all basically

[00:04:57] riding the wave of the snow skates surf sort of culture as a group. So this is like in a time when, you know, the kids go, kids go into school had to have their decline pack, backpack and DC shoes or whatever it was.

[00:05:09] And, you know, there's a bunch of money in this sort of a peril side of that business. So we were able to sort of take advantage of that and build all these consumer titles. So that's kind of my background in, you know, in this sports and this industry,

[00:05:24] started in retail and ended up publishing. And then the, I think it's fair to say that sort of surf skate culture sort of collapsed at one point and it was sort of unfortunately timed with the change to digital media.

[00:05:39] So the publishing business, I mean that, you know, that model or the model of this publisher who's definitely got really difficult, the advertising base collapsed in the competition from outside of sort of traditional print got really complicated as well.

[00:05:52] So I could say that was a good time for me to try to do something else. And I'd actually been fiddling around with this with a little accessory business for a kite surfing.

[00:06:02] And that was, you know, I took a little bit of a push on, you know, some encouragement, some friends but I kind of, you know, dove into that a little bit. So I started a company that was a kite sort of deck pads so traction for, you know,

[00:06:17] specific for typeboards and a kite board pump. It was a brand called WMFG. So it's kind of the first tall pump to the pump market and the brand still around, I sold it off a few years ago. But it was a super popular. Yeah, super popular.

[00:06:31] Yeah, for sure, for sure. So it was the first like over a height pump in the market. So standard typeboard pumps were 16 to 18 inches tall and it was the first pump of the market that was 24 inches.

[00:06:42] The first one you didn't have to like bend over and hurt your back every time you're pumping up a kite or now a wing. So, um, so I started that little business and just as that was kind of getting off the

[00:06:53] ground, a friend of mine had told me that there's an opportunity with mystic. So, uh, mystic pre prior to this had a standard distribution model in the US. So they sold it to one person who then resolded to the retailers and the brand was

[00:07:08] looking to do a direct model where they had their own operation in the US. So I interviewed for that job, um, you know, travel over Holland and, uh, the short order. I was hired to build the mystic direct business in the US.

[00:07:23] So, uh, for my first little bit, I was running mystic on my own and had my WMFG business as well and that was a, that was fun time and learned lots. That's my story or how I went from publishing into the wholesale business. Okay. Well, that's pretty cool.

[00:07:40] And then from there, um, I guess, when did because North encompasses a bunch of brands now? So you were from mystic to north could we continue on that story and see how you got us to our two.

[00:07:54] So, so when with the reboot of North, which I'm sure you've covered in a podcast or hopefully people are fairly familiar with, you know, the reaper, the new version of North that I work for, um, when they were rebooting, they, they got into some discussions with mystic

[00:08:08] about an act about an acquisition and, um, for, you know, for North inevitably if you get to produce kites and wings and all their rest of stuff, it's nice to have the boardbags and harnesses and all the other accessories that go along with it.

[00:08:22] So, so, um, acquiring mystic was pretty interesting from that perspective, but I think I think the real synergy for, for North looking at buying mystic was the already, is they would have a ready-made distribution model.

[00:08:33] So mystic has been one of the top water where brands for years and they have sales agents and sales reps or distributors in most markets. So, you know, for, for North come in and, and, and, and, um, buy in partner with mystic

[00:08:46] kind of solve the ready-made, you know, gave them like a ready-made distribution. So, it wasn't, it wasn't a foregone conclusion in every single market that if you're mystic rep or North bought them that you automatically are North but in most markets it made sense.

[00:09:00] So, almost all throughout Europe for example, all the mystic sales force became the North sales force and mystic already had a central hub and, like, logistics and sales office in, you know, the Netherlands so they were all there, you know, they were all most

[00:09:13] of the operation straight into that. So it was actually, you know, quite quite a seamless move to be honest in terms of launching the brand like they had the sales force ready to roll and a lot of the logistics and back, back and ready to roll.

[00:09:25] So that when that happened, you know, so I ended up with the North brand and, you know, I had that point in made sense to, you know, to move on from WMFG, you know, and just focus on North and mystic.

[00:09:41] So, you know, so when North came on the scene, I had, you know, one, one associate working with me full-time here in Toronto and then I had a sales rep, we'll still have a sales rep in the group of Oregon.

[00:09:55] And, you know, since that time we've added some more to our sales force but we're still all the back end and operations are. Are you an intermediate level wing foiler looking for an epic adventure this winter?

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[00:11:11] We recommend that you act quickly. I'll see you there. We're kind of based here in Toronto and since I started with Mystically Been Using the same, it's called a third party where it has set up so we don't operate our home

[00:11:25] or our staff would sort of go through it while third party and based on the past all of the product flows into the US, the US with most of our US customers. It's quite a good operation. Yeah, that's who we are. Oh, that's pretty cool, man.

[00:11:40] How did you find wing initially being based at a Toronto? I guess you were close to the water but when was the first time you kind of hopped on a wind surfer thought you would ever enter into this kind of world?

[00:11:53] I started windsurving as it, you know, 11 to 12 years old, something like that. I grew up with, you know, we had a little cottage of north and we were like sailing, you know, sail boats always part of our part of our life and stuff like that.

[00:12:05] So yeah, I got into windsurfing like that sort of like 12 or 13 year old. Agent just seemed a lot more interesting than sailing. So, but I mean, you progress slowly like living in Toronto. We always have winter where you can't really do much of anything.

[00:12:18] But yeah, I put it as much time as I could in every year or progress down to smaller and smaller board and eventually got into like, you know, performance shortboard sailing. I guess you could say, but, you know, getting a driver's license was the key thing

[00:12:29] is all of a sudden you can chase the wind around and all the rest of the stuff. So, yeah, I mean, it was pretty pretty out of the wind serving. I think I did my first trip to Hood River.

[00:12:38] And I took the first week off school and we used to be called grade 13 and some way see now here, of course. I know I missed the first week or so of school and Fugout to Vancouver and you know,

[00:12:47] one of my brothers buddies picked me up there and spent like a weekend camping car camping in Hood River, you know, like living full dirt bag style wind surfing as much as we could. So that was my first sort of like proper, proper trip.

[00:13:00] But then after that, it was like every summer, it's like, you know, a month or so and in a cabaret day, a month or so in Hood River and just put all the time I could into it going through a, going through your university. Oh, that's pretty cool.

[00:13:12] What did you take in university? I graduated an economics. Okay, perfect. All right. Which sounds like business, but it's not. No, well, the money off, I guess. It's technically in the arts department. But yeah, it was a really good background. Oh, nice. Okay.

[00:13:30] And I read a little bit that you started the Ontario kiteboarding association. Do you start that? Yeah, that was sort of a, yeah, yeah. I was a co-founder and president of the Ontario kiteboarding association.

[00:13:43] But that that was that came into time when I'd say kite surfing was getting a lot of sort of beach access issues at the time and there's like, um, you know, Kezwick, Kezwick, which is just north of Toronto, which used to be like a really

[00:13:56] good beginner spot for kiteboarding, which there's not very many of frankly in the Toronto area because most have deep water. You know, we got there is a tiny little park there that you get, you know, that

[00:14:04] you could launch and land out of sort of and, you know, with very little parking and everything in one thing, let do another, for local municipality, booted us out of there. And right around that time, I remember, um, Steve, the owner from board sports.

[00:14:18] So now North line sports. I don't call me out of the blue. He's like, man, we're, we're selling so much beginner here right now. And it's going, but and as this sport, and I just think we're going to have like all

[00:14:26] these issues in Toronto this year and it just feels like we're having all these issues and someone's got to do something. And we're really going to have all these issues. And you know, at the time I was running the sales department for that publisher and it's

[00:14:35] like, I kind of had a little bit of time to do this. So, you know, I took a follow myself through with some friends to start this association and right away, got like, first key.

[00:14:45] You know, we were right away in a big crisis issue up in the, with Sagan Beach area, which is a provincial park. And where, you know, where people, you know, with a couple of launches and it was just

[00:14:56] like, you know, the local community, the local residents up there were doing not my back here. We don't want you parked in front of our, you know, using our beach, which is not their

[00:15:04] beach, because it's public and, you know, it just turned into a big battle and there's, you know, issues at Sandbanks at the time and just, yeah, it actually turned into quite a task frankly.

[00:15:13] But things kind of calmed down and we sort of found a bit of a path like, you know, and I found some more people to kind of help with it. And I think now it's a little bit more, I'd like to think as kind of sort of inspired

[00:15:25] the local community to try to take care of their home business in their own area and for the large part is mostly mostly calm down now that beach access it. Okay, because I know Sandbanks, because I would frequent there like all the time in the

[00:15:38] fall for wave sailing. We had a bunch of stuff. They closed on the park. There had to be some negotiations held there so we could access it into October. There's, there's a whole bunch of different things plus parking passes they were initiated.

[00:15:51] They didn't want us parking here or doing that. So, well, hey, thanks for thanks for doing that on behalf of all of us. It's appreciated. It was wild back but still we still appreciate that effort because not everybody does that. Yeah.

[00:16:05] So how did I guess you get involved with AWSI? How long did the back go to that? That was wild back now too. I think I've been serving on the board for at least eight years and I don't know that.

[00:16:18] That also seemed like the right sort of thing to do when I was part of what I was doing, working for a kite surfing and when surfing magazine. It seemed the right thing to do.

[00:16:27] Yeah, I came on board with that quite some time ago and then I always joke. I never missed a board meeting. We do once a month we do a board meeting. I missed one meeting in the panel.

[00:16:38] They held an election and nominated me as president as I recall. So I've been the president of the Trade Association for quite some time now. Yeah, I mean it's giving back to the industry and one way or the other.

[00:16:49] I've worked on this business since I was a teenager. It kind of feels like the right thing to do. But our trade association as a fairly limited scope, I would say, our main task if you will or mandate is running once a year,

[00:17:09] sort of an annual trade show type event or something for the retailers and the brands to get together. So we don't have a tremendously wide scope like a trade association. You mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people.

[00:17:22] But our main mandate since I've been involved is what's the best place for us to all be and what's the best way for the brands to meet the retailers and the retailers to be able to meet the brands.

[00:17:35] We used to attend an event in Orlando called Surf Expo and Surf Expo is like a standard convention. It's in a big giant convention hall, heavily air conditioned, giant convention hall in Orlando and September and classic indoor style event which served a purpose at its time.

[00:17:54] You know it had a time in place because that was a really good place for us to be. And then we sort of following the guidance or the wishes of our members,

[00:18:04] both brands and retailers, there was a real call out to do something that was ahead of the more organic on the water field. So that's where we transition from being at Surf Expo to being in Hood River.

[00:18:16] Okay, all right and then so this is a brand's opportunity these stores opportunities everybody to meet pros to come down as well, test out gear. So this is still following. You want to our industries just how darn big this, but you know the territory is.

[00:18:32] So like in Europe for example if you're the sales rep in Germany or Holland or wherever it is, you know you can load your van up, drive around, see in person all of your customers quite readily.

[00:18:43] It's like where I live in Toronto. You know there's two good stores here in the Toronto area and then like if I wanted to go visit a store myself the next near stores like a six hour drive away practically right?

[00:18:53] So it was like the territory, you know like if you're a sales rep in Hood River and you're trying to see all of your dealers across the US just like you know less you're going to be on 25 flights and fly around for a month

[00:19:05] it's just like it's just not really possible. So for our industry like having one place to all come together and stuff is really just the most cost and time effective way to do business.

[00:19:16] Okay, fair enough. And then so it's not open to the public but there's one of the different I guess other than brands stores, sales reps who else go to these events or to this event.

[00:19:27] Uh yeah it's it's it really is it's intended for the retailers to be able to meet with brands and advice versus the you know the first and foremost part of it. You know media definitely attends and will do because I mean everyone is everyone is there

[00:19:43] and three days you can do a bunch of interviews or shoot a bunch of content. You can see all the new gear you can test gear, you can you know you can do all that sort of stuff. Of course have your your meetings about

[00:19:53] media ads sales support type stuff can all happen there. Some of the brands also use it like they'll they'll tack on a little time before after the event and do some product development type meetings as well because if everyone's all going there in the one spot.

[00:20:06] Like for example this year we've got a bunch of our we're bringing more than we might otherwise bring of our sale, winging, kite designers coming to Hood River and some people on the materials

[00:20:16] development team so they'll spend a couple of days at the event meet with our retailers and then they're all actually staying on site and doing a bunch of you know powwow stuff about what the next

[00:20:24] two or three years of our kites and wings will look like so you know it's a bit an opportunity since they're all going to go there anyways to meet with our retailers why not stick around for a few

[00:20:32] days of meetings and then I don't know the exact specifics of it but the Starboard group are also doing like they're doing like an international sales meeting right immediately after the event

[00:20:41] they've already brought all the product in they've got a bunch of their staff they're already so why not add on a few days and do some you know some of their internal meetings and that's sort of

[00:20:50] things so no it's it's while you're already there why not do more certainly you know what we're all doing as well yeah that's fair enough and how many vendors are coming around this year Jino

[00:21:02] yeah well like first thing I can say is more than last year um I don't know I think we've got I mean I think we've got something like in the range of 350 people registered on the retailers

[00:21:12] like from something like 75 different businesses or something to that but you know what something I'm going to kind of do for our sort of internal review of the event and now I wanted to actually

[00:21:22] kind of interest to see in terms of buying power what percentage of our customer base was there and I think it's going to be pretty darn significant like going through my north dealer list it's like

[00:21:32] we're not really missing anyone of you know all our significant top tier dealers are there so yeah it's it's it's pretty for you know for the brands that are with the brands that are

[00:21:43] exhibiting there it's a pretty incredible opportunity like pretty much all the major shops or retail is are there and you know so yeah it's I'd say the representation that is pretty pretty hard to be certainly a lot stronger than it was back in the surf expo days okay

[00:22:00] now obviously what do you think contributed to that the location most likely played a big part of it yep obviously it's grown quite a bit over the years as well yeah for for sure I mean we're

[00:22:12] bursting at the seams in terms of like exhibitors like we really can't really add much more but I think a lot of the I think a lot of what's driving it right now is just all the how quickly the

[00:22:23] the foil category is changing and how much growth there is in that category and I think that's fairly true of any sort of industry the industry's a little stale in terms of innovation and you know

[00:22:34] the interest in attendance at ratios are going to suffer so I think right now is actually really interesting time in our industry overall like kind surfing which I think had been frankly a bit

[00:22:45] stale in terms of product development is actually taken some really big steps in the last couple years and there's a lot of material innovation happening in tight surfing and that's still for a lot

[00:22:53] of the brands you know one of the bigger parts of their business and then at the same time I mean what do you even say about wing and foil right now in terms of innovation I mean there's so

[00:23:01] much going on at a simple level just tons of new brands like anytime you're in a business and I've seen this you know I've gone through the boom bus cycles and snowboarding where all of a sudden

[00:23:11] there's like 400 snowboard brands at a trade show event and then next year there's like 75 and then five years later it booms up a bit you know like that sort of thing will always draw people to

[00:23:20] trade shows when there's a lot of new products and new brands and stuff like that new opportunities you want to be as a retailer you all who's want to find the hot new brand coming ahead of the

[00:23:28] ahead of the dealer down the street right so trade shows are a place where that sort of thing can happen so we definitely have like an element of that happening right now the AWS event where

[00:23:37] a bit of what's the what's the hot new product which brands kind of more on the up and coming side you know where do you want to kind of put your chips in with sort of thing is certainly I think

[00:23:47] a big driver and an attendance and I mean I'd say if I was a retailer right now I can't imagine not going to this event there's just like all the all the brands I'm working with are probably

[00:23:56] there I've got a chance to meet you know really interesting people at the brand that would never step into my store that you know like for us with mystic like the guy literally started the brand

[00:24:04] is there it's pretty interesting pretty pretty cool to meet the guy who you know invented the first ever credit court honest or something like that but um you know for a retail in the space of three days

[00:24:14] they can see almost every single brand in the market whether they sell it or not people there you can look at it you can touch it you can feel it you can use it you know it's pretty it's

[00:24:22] pretty unique opportunity like that and we have you know I'd say like we've had you know dealers reach out to us perspective new dealers in the last month or so where it's like I don't know it's like

[00:24:31] first thing I say to him is why do you go to the event let's meet there and you can check out our step properly and you can also see everything else so you know it's a pretty you know for a pretty

[00:24:40] small investment of time and money for a dealer to be able to go to this event's pre-appet okay and people are coming from pretty much all over the world I mean the the core sort of

[00:24:51] our core group is is North American retailers so Canada and US but yeah this year yeah there's a I've noticed quite a lot more dealers out of Mexico coming to the event and we get we get also

[00:25:02] some Southern Central American dealers coming as well and a little bit and a little bit of a tenants from the Caribbean okay because I know I just had Apple Tree surfboard on and they're coming

[00:25:13] out from Holland and Portugal and stuff so they were pretty excited to come out and yeah like hey man get down there you can try out our boards and all that kind of thing so that was pretty cool to

[00:25:21] hear yeah what will for for Apple Tree you know based in Europe like for them to run around in the US trying to run up business you know trying to drum up business it's just not really very

[00:25:30] practical but to come to this event set up some meetings with you know with the top dealers and and and see who else comes by I mean they just can't there's just no better way for them to

[00:25:41] to enter the US market than just you know having having some space at this event and as an association like it's a it's a non-profit trade association we have one part time employee or

[00:25:52] executive director the only person who's you know and who's in a paid position to rest as all volunteer so you know we're not trying to like raise the prices on this and squeeze every penny out

[00:26:01] of out of the business we're trying to do it as low cost effective and make it as efficient as possible for the for the brands and for the dealers to do this so you know I mean the dealer

[00:26:11] for dealers yeah for a dealer to attend they have to pay a very nominal membership do they have to pay membership dues to the association and you know then they're in and for the brands we've really

[00:26:21] kept their costs down as low as possible and a true non-profit sense so you know it's we really it's all about just making this inexpensive and efficient for everybody like even the media

[00:26:32] pass like I got a membership paid WSI now and the price was some very reasonable like it wasn't anything that I had to think about at all yeah for what it's worth you now voting rights and stuff

[00:26:42] you have a official voice and you know where we're where this event if the event happens next year and where it happens you have a voice in that you want to be on the board you want to go

[00:26:51] for the board like you have a voice now in our whole you know in the whole organization by being a member okay fair enough fair enough could we get any maybe any little insights and what North is

[00:27:02] bringing for to the event or yeah yeah it's it's a bit of a funny time of year and that we just we've just done a big launch right so our our our brand launch was was August 1st where our new

[00:27:14] you know kayden wing most of our new kayden most of our kites and wings were uh relanged with the product so um you know on the wing inside like we launched the the mode pro and the loft pro and our

[00:27:26] our new seagborgs and you know we've had a bunch of new front wings uh you know in the past um in the past a month roll out so all that stuff will be there for testing and in some cases you know

[00:27:37] a lot of our retailers wouldn't have received it or maybe didn't pre-book some of it so haven't actually seen and touched it um themselves so pretty epic opportunity to try it but you know any anything though

[00:27:46] that we've released in the last six months so the deal may have had it and their store already they may have sold it already which is great but you know one of the things is really interesting at

[00:27:54] the uh at the event you know they you know they they may they may hear from you the other sales reps on our team like have why this is a great product and how it's good fit for your store

[00:28:02] it's really interesting for them to meet the uh the product about you know the product is 19 so you know the guy who uh we developed and um built our entire foil system uh we'll be summer let

[00:28:13] like you want the school as a naval engineer which seems like a exciting uh exciting degree to come out of but you know he's there at the event the entire time so he can explain like at a level of depth

[00:28:23] you know I just that I just can't manage so he's you know so it's pretty I think it's pretty pretty awesome for the retailers attending to be able to meet with you know with people like

[00:28:31] Bully and you know we have you know we have the guy who developed all of our footsteps traps and all that other stuff is there um you know we have our our mean wing designers we have some of you

[00:28:40] who's only job is to work on material developments stuff like that which is of course a a hot topic so oh yeah I mean you know talk a little bit more about some new products in a second

[00:28:49] but I think just being able to get sort of that background depth you know the layers and layers of depth if you want to if you want to like really get your nerd on and talk about Torxhead screws

[00:28:59] and foils and stuff go for you know we've got the right guy there to talk to you so so you can you can have some conversations with you know you might not have with your average sales rep you can get

[00:29:08] into some really deep layers and again the same on the on the mystic side like a max plomb you started mystica you know we'll get into a layer you know layers and layers of uh

[00:29:18] you know information on all of our products that uh you know you might not necessarily get for me so it's it's pretty interesting to be able to talk to like an entire team like that

[00:29:27] is pretty is pretty interesting and then um you know something we're doing this year that we haven't done in the past at this event which is definitely sort of you know for retailer eyes

[00:29:36] only is we're going to also have a fair bit of the product that's going to come in on March release line as well available for some you know somewhat for testing and it may not be

[00:29:45] available for everybody to test and everybody to see what we've got some interesting stuff coming next year that'll be also available but have a little looksy at I guess we could say yeah because you guys are what working how many years ahead of you working in the industry

[00:30:00] yeah i think you know there there's there's products in development that have a really long development role and material is in particular you know that's the sort of thing where you know like like our like our kind of control bar trying to think how many hours they want

[00:30:14] on it like it's something absurd like I don't know if I want to say it was 2000 hours but it was something like mind blowingly absurd to me then a number of hours they wanted to put on the

[00:30:22] bar before they were going to release it so like you know like our our new control bar I I know I mean I used a version of it over two years ago so yeah it's you know some things have

[00:30:34] on purpose a very long development life and I mean we've seen in this industry lots of times when when brands you know push things out too quickly trying to sort of you know jump a market a little

[00:30:43] bit Nick and they can certainly hand in tears so you know on some of the you know we've got some interesting proprietary materials we've been working on that they're definitely taking uh

[00:30:52] the slow route on but I mean that's you know a nuance of north like our ownership group is in our sales and they have their own you know they manufacture their own materials they have proprietary

[00:31:03] materials that they develop that have been developed in some cases you know for for the sailing world sometimes it's well it's take something from the sailing world and try to find it out you know find

[00:31:11] the application in kites or wings but you know they they're definitely not trying to shortcut that process at all and make sure that it's something you know that will hold up to the you know the nuances

[00:31:22] of piding a winging and you know while they look a bit like sales kites are not wings and well kites are not wings kites are not sales and wings are not definitely not sale so

[00:31:32] they have to make sure that they're taking the right time to get these materials uh boy access the big thing right now right because the first two years or a couple years of wings

[00:31:42] they came out um and there's a lot of material stretch um there's a lot of hernias there's a lot of handles ripping off and it's seen a huge progression now and now we're looking at more

[00:31:54] non-stretch materials there's a bunch of new ones coming out uh so I know ocean road you have some some smaller brands of some you guys have some as well so we're all kind of curious to see

[00:32:03] is like when is this wing gonna reach like I have Windsor sales probably 10 12 years old and sure they're not they're not the best but they still do very very well so we're

[00:32:14] curious to see how that's gonna push the performance of the wings with with all these new materials that are coming up Windsor sales like you know like it's different whether they're moving a master car master wherever they've got this rigid frame and we'll call the leading edge

[00:32:28] and then they use them all that all the monofilmes stuff is just a super stiff plastic material basically extruded material like there's almost no stretch to that so you know there's a little as I understand like a little stretch in the seams and stuff but I mean that's

[00:32:41] that stuff is pretty bomb proven yeah it breaks my heart to see people at Windsurfing on 10 year old sales and stuff but like I mean as if I launched my wing gear out of Toronto Windsurfing club

[00:32:50] and I swear I see sales I used to own like literally my old sale on a beach stop it's a car break in 1980s oh my god yeah yeah they're you know they're like the world that

[00:33:02] Windsurfing gear has a crazy lifespan but the how the way wings work and stuff like that like you have this pretty stiff leading edge that's not entirely stiff that still flexes and moves around

[00:33:11] and then all the tension goes to the trailing edge of the of the canopy and it's just it's you're asking a lot because the canopy to hold up there because you know if you put in something

[00:33:22] like wind surfing monofilmer or anything which you know there's lots of that being dabble around and stuff you're gonna get some other new awesys to it then then it's not breathing and bending and moving and so certainly then you know you're gonna completely change the way

[00:33:36] you look after and care for and all the rest but you know we'll see like you know we're gonna it wouldn't shock me to see and I'm not saying it's gonna come from our brand and I hope

[00:33:44] to hell it doesn't but it wouldn't shock me to see something that looks exactly like a wind surfing mast in the leading edge at some point you know it's just a strip like basically something like

[00:33:53] like that and you know you know there's already been some patterns like full length patterns and stuff like that being played around with and stuff so you know I think we're gonna see

[00:34:03] I think we're gonna see wings getting a lot more rigid and looking like they're borrowing a lot from from wind surfing yeah it's curious if it's almost gonna look like a terrodactal kind of skeleton

[00:34:13] almost you know I mean like something like that I could see but currently right now the wings this year are pretty phenomenal yes quite impressed yeah it's quite impressive it's taking a

[00:34:24] stake in a huge step forward and I mean there's tons tons of innovation happening right now and it's a yeah it's a pretty it's a pretty interesting pretty interesting time to be in the sport

[00:34:32] it's just gotten like you know the current generation years is so much better and frankly a lot easier easier to use than the first generation year so that's great how are you part of it

[00:34:43] okay now for the attendees of that trade show have you seen a big shift in who who is coming or is it the same brands whether they shifting more their focus towards a winging

[00:34:53] foiling like what percentage of you seen yeah for sure it's a good question I mean I'd say first year in hood river I'm just trying to think there how much winging there was I mean

[00:35:04] I'm thinking Nash and slingshot probably had wing gear and there's maybe a handful other brands and then by the second year it's like about half the brands had had wing gear and now this year it's

[00:35:15] out of the exception of it I think maybe a couple of standalone wind surf businesses I think every exhibit has something in the foil hand or wing category now so winging is very you know much

[00:35:25] of the forefront of this event and you know there's stores that are like kite surfing power houses that also so wing gear that come there that probably aren't going to spend a ton of time demoing

[00:35:34] kites they're going to be you know on on the wing gear chasing the foil gear more much more so now having said that the you know the launch and the the event side itself is a better wing site than a

[00:35:48] kite site the you know the for guiding the launch site can be a little hairy it can be a little variable also like gusty we're for winging you know you just kind of paddle out to the wind line

[00:35:58] and the way you go it can be a pretty good it's not a beginner spot to launch and land kites I'll put that way okay no fair enough yeah so do you think wing is going to jump that chasm that that

[00:36:10] kite board well that wind surfing did and something did do you think that'll that'll come with wing well I mean when's when surfing in SEP in there in their hey days big part of what made them

[00:36:24] so successful is they were like non-planning you know it didn't have to be super windy to do either like when surfing in its hey day and SEP of course so those sports are like really approachable

[00:36:35] you know you could you could like even I could make a plan to go stand up paddle boarding together you know a week to's day and 99% chance we're going to get to go so you know um kite surfing

[00:36:48] and has always been like so much more wind and weather dependent on it's it's that's a huge obstacle to the sport like you almost have to be able to like to really progress you have to be

[00:36:56] able to put your life on hold so that's you know that that's you know and chase and chase the wind so I think that's always been a barrier for kite surfing in terms of how big it can be is like if

[00:37:06] you know you're not in a windy place and don't have some flexibility in your life it's really hard to progress it now you know winging by comparison is you know the for most people the wind minimums

[00:37:17] lower you know you can certainly launch and land and do it in a lot more places I think it feels a lot less you know threatening do people learning it so I think it's got you know I think it's

[00:37:28] got all the it's it's certainly got lots of lots of room to grow like that I think it's it's it's it's needless it's it's fair to say I'm just a I think you can you can track a lot more people and I

[00:37:38] think it's a lot more broad and it's appeal so I you know it's definitely it definitely has a potential to grow a ton more and I mean the only caveat is I think for someone who doesn't come from any foil

[00:37:49] background you know it's still there it's still a challenge to get up on foil and get going and I watch people like you know here got into it first generation it seemed like it took them forever to get going

[00:38:00] but then I've also seen people who come into it with a real foil background and experience some kind surfing when surfing get it super quick so the you know the getting on the foil is still

[00:38:09] been a challenge but now what I'm seeing is I think there's you know another generation of development and the foil is now that we've gotten a bit of taking a quite significant leap forward

[00:38:18] and I think that's going to I think that's going to really really help the accessibility of the sport just you know getting better foil so they're just easier to get up on and more controllable.

[00:38:28] Oh yeah big time like we just had a fs on not that long ago and he was just talking about their development of foils in the last couple months for example and how much that's changed

[00:38:38] and what they're doing for the future and how they're going to make high performance gear accessible for masses and why every consumer should consider going slightly higher performance but then eight's gonna your life span is going to be a lot longer performance can be better

[00:38:54] but then your enjoyment is going to be so there's a lot of conversations being had in so many different things happening I think it's a pretty cool time for foil. Yeah well I'm like

[00:39:02] I'm mostly writing now foils that were developed for prone and so like our SF friend wings I'm writing our medium size SF wing and it's like this is the best like when foil I've ever

[00:39:13] rid you know and I'm thinking to myself like if for someone learning it's just like I don't know if you know I could it could be like groundbreaking these are surf wounds might be our best

[00:39:22] beginner wing right now so you know and you guys it's just like so easy to get up on foil and so easy to stay on foil and for someone learning transitions like they just don't they just

[00:39:33] don't want to stall yeah oh yeah for sure you know that's a pretty pretty near to the all my but it's like a little counterintuitive to you know I would begin her in your shop and send

[00:39:41] them out with a surf from wing right yep yeah I guess we're gonna we're gonna have to see what's what's coming but maybe a little bit more but you're in the Toronto area what are your favorite

[00:39:53] launch spots and obviously secret spots we can keep off because you know how protective we are our favorite spots nothing that's secret in Toronto but like if it's anything out of the yeast you know just down the street here at Ashbridge's Bay is awesome there's actually really cool

[00:40:08] winging spots and all along the beaches where um like the main beach you know it's super crowded with some bay there's and really shallow like a fairly gradual drop off so it's it's tricky getting out

[00:40:21] with foil just a little bit further a little further east the uh there's parking right close to the and nice little grassy areas and there's all these little anti erosion break walls you can launch

[00:40:33] behind and you basically almost straight into deep water and right out in the waves it's freaking epic yeah so for like winging here and the beaches on it each really is amazing and then um

[00:40:43] you know are more prevailing wind and more common wind in Toronto's southwest so uh if you want to stay in the city no cherry beaches the is the main spot so um like that's that's the

[00:40:52] tight surf spot in Toronto's cherry beach and I've spent hours and hours you know the old days you know getting dragged way down wind and you know all the rest of stuff you went through

[00:41:01] learning to a tight surf here in Toronto but but that's unlike the main spot for ages but now uh the Toronto wind surfing clubs actually really nice spot for winging uh the trees are right to the

[00:41:11] water so you can't really launch on landpights there but the the Toronto wind surfing club has been around forever they got nice manicured lawn right down to the water's edge lots of mellow parking lots

[00:41:21] other people winging and when surfing and stuff so that's become my uh like go too spot for winging on anything out of the southwest in Toronto but you know funny thing about foiling in general

[00:41:31] whether it was like tight foiling before winging is uh you know used to be I was chasing the wind all over the place like all I wanted to do is like ride a surf board and a small cave and I'd be like

[00:41:39] it's a southwest day either it's like three hours to sand the anx or two hours down to Lake Eury and just driving and chasing and chasing and chasing them with foiling it's like I heard they ever leave the city

[00:41:49] so it's been awesome to tell you guys a good particular foils session like you know 10 minutes from home is awesome nice yeah i've seen notice that as well like a bunch of our buddies and stuff

[00:42:00] are getting into some bigger stuff at sand banks but now you can get out on what even two two foot stuff and for some reason it just makes it feel huge and you have such a maybe it's the acceleration

[00:42:13] but the whole the whole foiling explosion has been fascinating yeah for sure and you know saving three or four hours and your car is always always nice to yeah absolutely yeah especially considering

[00:42:22] you're not too far um is there anything else you want to chat about a WSI anything uh any other tidbits that people at home would would like to know or they should watch out for two and four

[00:42:33] you know one thing i'd say to if you know if there's a retailer watching or brand watching that maybe hasn't been to a river and I think we I think sometimes you know the spots been around for so long

[00:42:43] and we don't talk about enough like this spot is that it's stunningly beautiful as it you know know this you know this massive river in the mountains and stuff like that the town

[00:42:54] hood rivers are really really cool town it's you know steeped in history here amongst the wind sports but it's just like it's you know i go there once or twice a year and when I'm driving

[00:43:04] in Portland it's like i remind myself how freaking cool and beautiful it is you know to river and it's pretty it's pretty unique like we're running this event like literally your little exhibit space

[00:43:14] is i don't know not 50 meters to the water everything's happening right there in the picture yes you know the snow cap mountains in the background and the whole bit like it's it's a really

[00:43:25] really cool vibe like that and then you know it's also a very social event like most of the brands have beers on the go by four clock and stuff like that and you know it's a really really fun uh

[00:43:35] you know it's a really a really fun event like for us uh so i mentioned max plomb of founder mystica couple times you know he he fires up a little DJ set every every afternoon around four

[00:43:44] clock and stuff like that and you know it's got like a really really fun you know fun vibe at the event so yeah if for some for anyone in our businesses like i just i just can't imagine i wanted

[00:43:54] wanting to be there it's really great okay no fair enough i appreciate that you're gonna have a blast oh yeah i think it's gonna be fun to come down beat everybody um and yeah hood river is

[00:44:05] absolutely beautiful beautiful spot uh so really looking for a towel that so yeah it's it's becoming just like a monster destination for all things foil right now and just blowing up you know

[00:44:15] i mean it's i mean it's a really it's a pretty epic place to cuter but you know most of the launches are a little tricky and you gotta know what you're doing but for a winging there's

[00:44:24] so many spots you can ride like it's so funny like all the old wind serr spots like my first time i went winging at at the hatchery so funny all the little all the little trails

[00:44:35] that i used to use in my wind serr thing gear like i don't know what is it now like 25 years ago or whatever there's there are all the little launch spots that you launch your wing gear on and stuff like that

[00:44:43] and i'd like oh yeah this is spot a usually launch and i usually come in there because it's a lot easier scrambled with rocks there and stuff and it's just it's it's it's so funny to see

[00:44:51] how many people are winging there and it's a no crazy winks in that of the hatchery so it's super fun oh yeah i don't know there's been a huge explosion to even like following Matt

[00:45:00] Richards kid kaden pritchard and mower there's been such a huge explosion of winging absolutely everywhere and fully absolutely everywhere and are you getting into downwinding at all and the new downward boards up personally yeah i mean our products next next spring release

[00:45:16] and you know we'll have some less stuff with wood river to check out but i mean you know for me the most interesting part living in Toronto and that was you know i was watching

[00:45:26] i was well i've been watching a couple guys on downwinder boards like up on four winging in ridiculously light winds and that's really really interesting and i think for some more like Toronto i got part of that part of the downwindy board is going to

[00:45:39] be you know my mind much bigger than paddling on the swell i think the you know the using using that setup in uh for lightwind wings is going to be really interesting yeah i don't know

[00:45:49] yeah i'm looking forward to just seeing all that variety and especially with with how much money is being pumped into foiling yeah if how low can we go and still have time wings and

[00:46:01] we we have them in development i think well i'm gonna hood river and stuff i mean those giant pump wings on the right hull it's gonna be really interesting for when you're asking about you know

[00:46:11] the size or how big uh how big winging can be i mean there is still an inherent wind minimum for most people if we can break through that threshold i mean geez then then this thing can

[00:46:21] really really start to take off i think on that note i guess if any retailers are listening this is the place to be uh when's the event running uh this year we are running it's the Wednesday after

[00:46:34] a Labor Day so that is Wednesday 6-7-8 so the Tuesday so Labor Day is Monday the 4th the 5th is a full day setup day for the exhibitors and then the event runs when Wednesday through Friday

[00:46:46] Wednesday through Friday okay and i think there was a few events in evening there was something yeah when Wednesday night is the sort of our opening party and that's when we do our words we have

[00:46:56] like a athlete of the year male and female for wind surfing kite surfing and winging then we have a brand of the year for all those sports so it's our annual awards show happens on the first night

[00:47:07] okay you know you know open bar or some food all that sort of stuff right right happy event sites so right next to the river and then on the we have sort of like a wrap party well i have an industry

[00:47:18] party on the Thursday sponsored by duotone armstrong and north and uh i'm sure there'll be some other stuff popping up yeah lots to do okay fair enough well hey Matt thanks a lot for joining

[00:47:28] me today on your under Sunday in Toronto and i'm looking forward to seeing you down there yeah I need look forward to awesome thanks back to our north