In late April and luckily just in betweeen volcanic erruptions Messe Friedrichshafen’s OutDoor Team organised a press trip to the UK. The aim was to give European National Newspapers and non-core trade press an ’outdoor experience’. A group of sixteen were exposed to the beauty of the UK’s North-West, starting with a visit to the beach just north of Liverpool to see sculptor Anthony Gormley’s Another Place, followed by a drive north to Lancaster to spend a half-day at the Innov_ex conference (see seperate story).

A trip up to Keswick, in the Lake District, on the second afternoon gave the group the opportunity to experience the best of UK outdoor retailing, followed by an evening talk given by the specialist climber Andy Cave on how a young coal miner from a working class background managed to leave the mines behind and become a top climber. The culmination of the three day event was a trek up to Pavey Ark in the mountains of the English Lake District. The expected outcome of the trip is a substantial increase in general press coverage of the outdoors on the lead up to OutDoor in July.