Obviously now its to see how much of this is "show hype" and "show excitement" and how much of it is genuine dealership and distributor interest. In two weeks, when they've calmed down, lost my card, got real, we'll see if we still get somewhere.
But the important thing in a nutshell is that the prevailing attitude here towards both the split and eco was far better than in the USA (though in some circles, especially amongst SUP surfers both have been embraced). This is to be expected. First of all, Europe is probably 2 to 3 years ahead as far as being eco, recycling etc. So the interest is genuine for BOTH dealers and surfers. Then the split board was a hit. Unlike places like the USA where reception to the idea is either hot or cold, Europeans have several unique problems that makes this invention attractive to them. 1) they almost have to travel to surf, so they're tired of getting raped by airlines and 2) they drive really small cars and live in tiny apartments, so they have nowhere to store the boards and no way to transport them except on the roof, and this is more gas, on a continent where gas is about $6 a gallon!! So as a whole the interrest is genuine excitement and therefore more likely to bare fruit.
Another interesting comment from a dealer, the level of surfer here is lower than in the USA (because they have to travel to surf, so surf less) and so the questions about whether the eco or split system makes the boards surf different are moot. Even if it is identical (having the idea was easy, making it work absoluteley perfectly was not), good surfers worry that its not. Most in Europe say "anyway I'm not good enough to know, and this makes my life easier/cheaper". Everyone wants the split boards! While I believe that the split is no different in performance, it is a common "concern" in the USA, as it should be. After all - you want your board to surf perfectly. Luckilly for us, we got it right!
The Scandinavian distributer is super stoked on the boards he got. Already he has tests set up with the two major magazines both of which are drooling over this. And he's just getting started.... Just about every other surf mag in Europe interviewed me too, so in the next months lots of surf press going to happen. We have distributer inquiries (serious ones) for all of europe from just one company, or about 3 or 4 options per country for every country separately, including [france,spain,portugal], [germany, switzerland, austria], italy, [the uk and ireland] and Japan.
In all cases they are super stoked on us and what we're doing.
We also had an inquiry from several companies about making boards OEM.
All in all, the prevailing attitude here is overwhelmingly positive. I was totally swamped. 3x the traffic than ASR - hell, 5x. Also, super positive about 4WFS fins in general and the overwhelming advantage they offer the rider over other systems.
The general feeling about us is "It's about time!". Relief that surfing has moved beyond the PU surfboard of the 1950's.
Again, after the show excitement has settled, and the dust has blown off, we'll see what comes of this, but essentially if 10% of this pans out we're set. I wish we'd been at least two people... because its a winter show I was expecting limited traffic, but in Europe all surf shops sell ski and snowboard in winter, so all the "buyers" were here. It was madness alone... I'd have to dash off to the toilet just to come back and have 10 people waiting for me.
Watch the ISPO video here.
Meanwhile, Olli was proud to announce that Sweets new Purple Helmet comes in a Pink box!
Random, I know!
These guys were hard core! They are from an era of kayaking when almost every kayak trip resulted in some sort of major catastrophy, and this often a friends death. Their advancements put and end to this trend and started the change that made kayaking safe.