Olympic medalist Gretchen Bleiler will be signing autographs at the Oakley store at the at the Irvine Spectrum September 13, 2008 from 2-3 PM as part of the mall’s Style Week Orange County festivities. Bleiler will be reportedly gearing “up to launch her first ever, highly anticipated Signature Apparel Series” outerwear line which hits stores in October.
[Link: Style Week OC via Fibre2Fashion]
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Foam Magazine, Neff Headwear, and The Skateboard Magazine are helping Active President Shane Wallace welcome the world into Active Ride Shop’s newest retail location. It’s Thursday night September 4, 2008 and the place is packed.
Located at 319 7th Avenue in the heart of San Diego’s Gaslamp District the high ceilinged, 7,000 square foot, brick building sits literally on Petco Park’s left field line directly next the gate that 15,000 people walk through each time there is an event. And Shane Wallace is pretty happy about it. “We have the best retail location at the best ballpark in the nation,” Wallace says.
A DJ is spinning to the side of the woodgrain-and-mirrors eyewear display and skateboarder Terry Kennedy and his crew are making some noise. It’s hard to see much of the detail of the store thanks to the sea of people filling ever bit of floor space. One thing that is visible is the bark-covered trunk of an evergreen tree reaching for the roof. “That’s where the snowboards will go,” Shane says. “We had to wait until after this party to get that set up.”
The interior, which was designed by JPS Designs, The Goodwins, and Shane Wallace, is expansive yet retains a boutique feel. Doors open both onto the street and into the ballpark grounds, so in theory people could walk out of an event and through the store on their way home.
With 27 stores in the heart of what Wall Street is calling the worst “housing state” in the nation, Wallace knows that it hasn’t been all parties and DJ’s in action sports retail lately. “I won’t lie to you,” he says. “It’s been really tough year. But it’s going to turn around.”
He smiles proudly as he gazes across the packed store on opening night. “We have a few more adjustments to make, but this is our future,” he says. “This is Active.”
[Update 09.06.08: Just got word that sales in the store’s first two days of operation have been “stronger than expected.”]
Follow the jump for all the photos (click to see them full size).
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While we were busy sitting through ASR seminars yesterday Quiksilver held their quarterly conference call. Luckily Reuters was there get all the details: “the company posted a quarterly profit that beat estimates, and stood by its fiscal-year earnings view, sending shares up 13 percent.”
Quiksilver said on Thursday that profit margins were fattened by a higher percentage of sales in Europe and at company-owned retail stores. Results were also helped by a tax benefit. . . . “We had a pretty decent quarter, given how tough the retail environment is around the world,” said Chief Executive Robert McKnight in a conference call with analysts.
Higher percentage sales at company-owned retail stores. . . wonder if that’s how Hollister does it?
[Link: Reuters]
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Globe’s Gary Valentine and Rodney Mullen hanging out down by the tracks looking for a fight.
More street photos after the jump.
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We came in ready to have a little laugh at Fuel TV‘s expense about having a media panel with no media people on it, but Fuel’s John Stouffer surprised us.
Sure, Fuel TV’s General Manager CJ Olivares was on the panel (as he is every year), but also upfront were several other action sports media people: TransWorld Business Publisher Rob Campbell, The Surfer Group Publisher Rick Irons, and Vans marketing guy Doug Palladini.
The stated point of the discussion was how the Internet is changing action sports media. With the exception of Palladini, however, all the panelists were from old media companies who happen to have websites. No one from any of the emerging online action sports media businesses like loopd, Seshn, Sportnet, Go211, or Bnqt were even represented on the panel. Add to the fact that Vans spends millions of dollars with the other three panelists and it ended up like little more than a one-sided scuffle about advertising.
One of most pointed comments came from the audience when Ransu Salovaara the CEO of online ad network Sportsyndicator.com said:
The readers have already abondonded the magazines. The people are already online but the industry is supporting the magazines. The marketing directors are about two years behind the rest of the world. . . . The magazines are not supported by readers anymore, they are supported by the industry.
As might be imagined the entire panel disagreed.
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If listening to Quiksilver’s Bob McKnight read a statement and then answer anylists’ questions is something you find entertaining (like we do), then tune your Internet deck to www.quiksilverinc.com at 1:30 PST today September 4, 2008 and be enlightened and entertained all at the same time with Bob, Joe Scirocco, Marty Samuels, and Bruce Thomas.
[Link: MarketWatch]
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It must be nice having an intern managing editor. That’s how Yobeat.com is getting all the new content like this solid interview with TransWorld Snowboarding filmer Joe Carlino.
I was really into photography when I was in high school, and then my senior year I did an internship at this wedding video company, from there I got really into it. After high school I moved to Burlington to “take a year off” from school. I got ahold of this guys Todd Franzen at 411 video mag and started submitting footage to them. Later that winter I got my first shot in a video, it was an opener of Chris Acker doing a big wood rail in VT. Like I said, after that winter I moved to Bear and while I was driving out there my mom saw on their website Bear Mtn. was looking for someone to do web movies. Brad Farmer (from Future Snowboardmag) was the marketing guy at the time, and I just kept bothering him till he gave me the job.
Read it all, he’s cool. His movie These Days will not be bad. It would be almost impossible.
[Link: Yobeat]
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Of course, we knew nothing would escape unscathed in the latest news from the McCain/Palin camp. Now, that we’ve all found out about who it was that impregnated Sarah Palin’s 17-year-old daughter Bristol, the big question is, “What is he like?”
Well, Levi Johnston, 18, who obviously backs Billabong, described himself on his myspace page as follows:
‘I’m a f–kin’ redneck who likes to snowboard and ride dirt bikes. But I live to play hockey. I like to go camping and hang out with the boys, do some fishing, shoot some s–t and just f–kin’ chillin’ I guess. Ya f–k with me I’ll kick ass.”
Makes us wonder if he’s a Transworld subscriber. If not, he probably should be.
[Link: Miami Herald and Gawker]
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For those in foreign countries, it’s a nice way to do business: set up the distribution of your favorite brand, get it rolling, and then sell it back to the brand. For the brand it’s a relatively cheap way to expand into foreign markets (with much less risk). That’s what Volcom just did with their Japanese distributor.
This acquisition is a testament to the strength of our brand in Japan after working with our distributor for more than 15 years,” says Richard Woolcott, chairman and CEO of Volcom. “We are excited to culminate a longstanding relationship with an opportunity to work more closely with our accounts in this important territory, while retaining our Japan-based distribution team.”
When it works out nicely, it’s amazing.
[Link: OC Metro]
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We haven’t been watching a whole lot of TV lately, so we learned about this DC Shoes TV commercial from a newspaper’s website. Yes, that’s how bad it’s gotten. Lehigh Valley Live’s Marcia White tipped us off to this Schoolhouse Rock Figure 8 riff. Check out the original Schoolhouse Rock version after the jump.
[Link: Lehigh Valley Live]
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