Winterpro January 11-13 Tignes France Preview
The big news is Winterpro is moving up the valley from La Rosiere to Tignes. Tignes is one of the highest resorts around and so good snow is virtually guaranteed for the 3 days of on-snow testing. Over the past few years the event has really established itself as a key B2B event in the winter calendar and once again it will be the first European on-snow demo of the year, with shops visiting to test FW26/27 snowboard products for the very first time.
This year’s show is being held from Sunday11th January through to Tuesday 13th January. The test village will be located just outside the Tignes Office de Tourisme with the indoor Winterpro showroom and reception a short walk away inside the Tignespace building, which also houses the Tignes indoor Skatepark.
The test village will be open from 8.30am to 4.30pm everyday with the nearby Palafour and Almes lifts provide fast access up to the slopes and over to the Le Palet Snowpark. Last year 42 brands exhibited, 237 shops visited and 3003 tests were made. This year the list of exhibiting brands includes Vans, DC shoes, Quicksilver, Roxy, Volcom, Burton, CLEW, Armada, RVCA, Nixon, Nitro, Sun Bum, Jones, Smith Optics, Union, Capita, Lib Tech, Thirtytwo, Spy+, Ride Snowboard, Salomon Snowboard, Arbor, K2 Snowboards, Bataleon, Rome, Gnu, Von Zipper, Yes, Nidecker, Northwave, 686, Amplid, Rossignol, Jones, Borealis, Nzero, Double Deck, Helloid Japan, Spark, Eivy, Autumn and Stance.
The indoor Winterpro showroom will be occupied primarily by exhibiting accessory and textile brands as well as some of the brands from the test village. It will also be the location of the morning Breakfast and the early evening’s activities including an aperitif served on Sunday and Monday from 5.50pm.
This year sees the launch of Winter Fest in Tignes. Running parallel with Winterpro, this cultural and artistic event is also open to the public and dedicated to promoting Board Culture. The programme includes film premieres of the latest Snowboard movies from 5pm and 7pm each afternoon, these screenings will be accompanied by pro-riders and directors. There will be scheduled Skateboarding demos and contests in the indoor skatepark; an exhibition of several hundred historic snowboards from the 70s to the present day from PJ Cazaux’s private collection; an exhibition of paintings, drawings and sculptures from the boarding scene; the Board Culture Exposure (BCE) photo exhibition and a bookshop with numerous publications – all dedicated to snowboarding.
The festival is rounded off with music on Sunday and Monday evenings. DJ’s from the Ed Banger label will play sets on both nights at Le Strike at the Snow Front.
There are regular shuttle buses between Tignes and the Bourg Saint Maurice train station, which is served by the TGV High Speed trains direct to Paris, Marseille and Geneva. Nearest airports are Chambery, Lyons, Grenoble and Geneva. See you in Tignes for the snowboard trade season on-snow opener.
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