Dead Point Magazine: Free Climbing Publication Launches October 15th
Posted by Jason A. Hendricks on August 16, 2008 |
There is a new climbing publication on the horizon looking to join the ranks of Climbing, Rock and Ice, Alpinist, and Urban Climber. Dead Point Magazine will be launching on October 15th and promises to deliver something a little more different than what is currently on the market. The biggest issue will revolve around price. Dead Point magazine will be FREE and distrubuted through your favorite local climbing gym or swag shop. Now you shouldn’t have an excuse to not know what is going on in the world of climbing-
Dead Point Magazine will be a bi-monthly publication aimed towards younger climbers with a hip look, to boot. They are promising to deliver more in-depth features than publications currently on the market and are guaranteeing that they won’t shy away from controversial material-they list their second issue as one to keep an eye out for.
As is the custom these days, Dead Point Magazine will be building a community around the magazine with a vast online presence which will include trip reports, forums, climber blogs, video, the latest climbing news and a whole lot more.
I recently had the opportunity to stop by the Dead Point Magazine website (www.deadpointmag.com) and look things over. It definitely looks to be heading in the right direction. The front page conveniently shows the latest climbing news, gear reviews, and some climber blogs, including those of Joe Kinder, Chris Lindner, Jason Kehl, and Mikey William to name a few. It should definitely be a new presence in the world of climbing.
Dead Point Magazine will be looking to push the boundaries and the sport in new directions. Think you can climb like Ethan Pringle? Dead Point has put up a $1,000 bounty to any climber that can repeat Ethan Pringle’s recent test piece, Jumbo Glass, which is rated at 14c. They are looking to challenge and inform the climbing community to push their limits and see what they can do. A nice money bounty is one way to draw a few looks from climbers, for the most part, they are broke as a joke and are always interested when it comes to making some cash.
Dougald MacDonald, who writes from time to time for Climbing magazine, as well as being a freelance adventure writer, happened to make the first announcement concerning the new Dead Point Magazine launch on his own blog:
Of all the things I saw at the Outdoor Retailer show while reporting for the trade show’s daily paper, the most surprising was the news that a West Virginia–based team is planning to launch a new climbing magazine this fall. Dead Point Magazine.
Dougald then went on to suggest that the market for climbing publications is pretty small and he is wondering about the viability of another publication geared towards the climbing community.
UKclimbing.com picked up on this piece and has now offered a few thoughts of their own on this equation. They mention the recent folding of a UK publication, Gravity magazine. gravity was a free publication that launched in the UK in 2006, but obviously didn’t get the following that that they were expecting.
UKclimbing.com then goes on to ask it’s readers if UKclimbing should start it’s own print publication. That is kind of an odd turn of events, but none-the-less, it is getting a nice discussion going in the UKclimbing forums. Many climbers are for the idea, then again, who better to ask than the climbing community..the ones who eat, drink, and breath climbing. I am sure they would support anything that is out to promote the sport and offer a bit more reading material for their climbing craves.
I feel that if a publication can come out, offer something a bit new, and recieve the backing of both sponsors and climbers, then there is a good chance of success. Dead Point Magazine already has gear shops and climbing gyms in all 50 states signed on to distribute the publication, and you can be guaranteed that if these shops are distributing the publication for free, that sponsers and advertisers shouldn’t be to hard to find. They are always looking for a way to reach deeper and get us to fork out more dough.
What are your thoughts on this discussion? We all know print publications are getting fewer and fewer subscribers, yet, I know I still enjoy holding my pie while I eat it. Metaphorically speaking, of course. I also like knowing that I have the reference material at hand.
I think that one way Deep Point Magazine could be different from the rest, is to offer up a combination of their online presence and print presence. In order to see how this is being utilized properly, you would have to pick up a print issue of The Sporting News, which has done a fantastic job of combining their online presence into their print format magazine and vice/versa.
This opens up a rather large discussion on the merits of print publications and where things are heading. Do you think there is a market for another climbing publication? Also, how could one combine the online and print to get readers to both? I am actually looking forward to seeing the first issue of Dead Point Magazine and am glad to see someone else jump in the fold. Whether it will be supported as planned, and continue to be free down the road, could determine a lot of it’s future success. This is definitely a different business plan from current publications on the market, but being different is sometimes a recipe for success.
I am looking forward to hearing your comments on this subject. Comment below and let me hear your thoughts.
Brave move, I hope they manage to keep going!
August 18th, 2008 at 4:56 am