The 27th edition of Prowinter is ready to take the stage from Sunday 10 to Tuesday 12 January at Fiera Bolzano, thus marking the highly anticipated return of the historic Prowinter Award.

This award, created to highlight excellence and identify products with the greatest market potential, confirms itself as a strategic asset for the entire winter mountain industry.

For the 2027 edition, the Prowinter Award is evolving its structure while keeping its core mission intact: to reward the most valid innovations on the market to offer retailers and rental businesses a concrete and qualified tool to guide their purchasing choices ahead of the new season.

This growth is reflected in a marked internationalization, in perfect harmony with the evolution of the trade show itself. The award takes on an increasingly global scope thanks to the inclusion of foreign members within the two expert juries dedicated to the Ski & Snowboard and Outdoor segments respectively.

They will be tasked with evaluating the entries distributed across 13 categories, alongside a special prize entirely dedicated to safety. For the 2027 edition, in fact, the competing sections have been expanded to more accurately reflect the hybrid identity of the winter market and Prowinter itself.

The Ski & Snowboard segment will feature 8 categories:

•    Top Performance Piste Skis
•    All Mountain Piste Skis
•    Ski Mountaineering Skis (Freetouring)
•    Top Performance Piste Boots
•    Mid Performance Piste Boots
•    Women’s Ski Boot (new)
•    Ski Mountaineering Boots (Freetouring)
•    Snowboards (new).

“Prowinter is taking on an increasingly central role in the winter sector, attracting a growing number of prestigious companies at an international level” states Kurt Ladstätter, president of the Ski & Snowboard Jury. “Hand in hand, our board and evaluation criteria have also evolved and been refined. Our goal as jurors is to reward those innovative products capable of proposing novel technologies that can revolutionize the sector and concretely respond to the new needs of the market.”

The Outdoor segment, on the other hand, will be divided into 5 categories:

•    Winter Active Footwear
•    Winter Expert Footwear
•    Winter Backpack (new) – 20 to 40 liters capacity [models with avalanche airbag systems excluded] •    Second Layer (new) – fleece, synthetic, down and hybrids [shell garments excluded] •    Hiking Sunglasses (new) – sunglasses, not goggles [reference EN ISO 12312-1]

“The Prowinter Award aims to be much more than just a simple recognition” comments Massimo Zuin, president of the Outdoor Jury. “Our ambition is to define new standards of excellence for the entire sector. The seal awarded to the winners is destined to become increasingly sought-after: not a traditional trade fair formality, but the symbol of a rigorous, careful and authoritative selection.”

The real revolution of the Prowinter Award 2027, however, is the introduction of the Prowinter Safety Award: a special, cross-cutting prize dedicated to the safety of helmets for skiing, snowboarding, ski mountaineering and mountaineering. Open to all exhibiting companies in both segments (Ski & Snowboard and Outdoor), this award will be given to a single product of excellence, evaluated by the two juries meeting in a joint session.

The competing products will be examined through a transparent and structured evaluation system, differentiated for the two macro-segments to highlight their technical specificities.

The analysis will take into account fundamental and cross-cutting parameters such as innovation, marketability, applied technologies, design, functionality and storytelling capabilities.
To these is added sustainability, which is confirmed as a fundamental pillar of the entire trade show: the Environmental Responsibility criterion will indeed account for 10% of the total score in both segments.

The winners will be announced during the opening ceremony of the 27th edition of Prowinter on Sunday 10 January 2027, during which all the finalist products will also be presented.

All nominated products will remain on display in the Award Area for the entire duration of the event.

To find out the complete rules of the Prowinter Award:click here.