Award ceremonies with very many categories are sometimes a bit problematic. They can quickly become uninteresting if the processes are always the same, the moderators are not up to it and the winners are only moderately entertaining. At the premiere of Outstanding Outdoor as an award of OutDoor by ISPO, all this was fortunately not the case. David Badalec and his co-moderators Alexandra Schweikart and Benjamin Marias led through the different categories quickly and competently - in English as well.
There was only one person who didn't want to keep up: Peter Mattis, CEO of Palgero, Gold Winner in the Base Layer category. For 45 years his English had not been in use except when buying holiday souvenirs, and so he preferred to continue speaking in German. A good idea, because he actually had a very entertaining story to tell in the short time available.
From 203 submissions in 28 categories, the international expert jury selected four "Outstanding Products", 21 Gold Winners and 26 Winners. And because the cheerful crowd of testers didn't just consult in some cloudy hall, but spent three days out in the fresh air, the very first OutDoor by ISPO Award was presented to the host Annecy Mountains. A beautiful gesture. The French landlords had also provided plenty of snow and cool temperatures in the higher test areas - after all, you can't test a down sleeping bag at 30 degrees Celsius.
In each product category, the winner was awarded a Gold Winner and one or two other convincing products were awarded a Winner. In addition, outstanding submissions on important industry topics were honoured with the Outstanding Product, as the main prize for highly innovative milestones and industry trends, so to speak, in the following product categories: Sustainability, Comfort Performance, Urban Outdoor and Lightness. To the film music from "Rocky", the respective winners jumped on the podium, received the award, which obviously weighed several kilos, and presented the USP of their product with a few sentences.
Only Peter Mattis' performance, as I said, was a bit out of the ordinary - which made the event all the more entertaining. He comes from an entrepreneurial family that has been active since 1880. It all started as a linen supplier for hospitals. Now in its fifth generation, the family business based in Herford, East Westphalia, mainly supplies religious people. Matthis puts it this way: "We attract nuns and monks." Once he had been on the road with a bishop in Greece and had noticed: "The Orthodox is sweating!" His plan: "We have to build him a shirt!" A colleague drew his attention to the Icelandic brown algae, which has many advantages - both for the carrier and for the environment. Almost three years after the founding of the outdoor brand Palgero, the first award was presented at OutDoor by ISPO - in English and German.
