I went to the ISPO in München this year with work. It's pretty much Europe's biggest winter sports exhibition and fills about 10 massive halls over four days.
While it's a fair amount of fun and some of the stands are quite impressive (Volcom's had a huge half pipe skate ramp, plus live punk band every night), there seems to be a serious state of denial within the ski and snowboard industry. Despite snow levels across the Alps being fairly poor for the second year running, ski companies still use images of endless fresh powder runs to sell their ever more technologically advanced equipment.
There was virtually no acknowledgement of the change in climate, which just seems totally short-sighted. In 20 years, it's possible that skiing will only be available above at high altitude and for the super-rich. But does anyone at ISPO seem concerned by this? From what I observed: not really.
