Seeing as Denver, Colorado seems to be a little higher in our minds this week, here’s a little taste of what goes down in the Mile High City when the Snow Industries of America aren’t around from the crew at CLFX and 303 Boards Shop. You know, just to remind us that Denver isn’t only about snow.
During the Sundance Film Festival (which runs January 20-30, 2011) brands do pretty much anything they can to get celebrities to wear, hold, use, and promote their products.
Stars reportedly get to roll through houses and/or shops set up in Park City, Utah and pick and choose what they want. Burton Snowboards is all over it according to a story on The Wrap.
Try for the Burton House, where select industry VIPs can get off Main Street, get private lessons (and free gear) from snowboard legend Jake Burton himself, or just hit the slopes for a few hours.
Danny Davis is even out making celebrity runs with stars like Gossip Girl’sPenn Badgley, according to Zimbo. Don’t say Burton Team members don’t work for their pay.
Stevie Williams and BMXer Nigel Sylvester go head-to-head in this Glenn PP Milligan directed promo for The Takeover Tour(a BMX and skate tour coming next summer, or something).
We mentioned the Denver Big Air contest in the past when Metro Denver Sports Commission first thought they could get people to pay $75 a head to stand out in the cold and watch a big air snowboard contest. After having lowed the price to an overpriced $45 they’re still getting grief because of the lack of big name talent in the event, according to a story on the Denver Post.
This forced USSA Competition Director Eric Webster to deliver one of the best lines we’ve heard this week:
“This is a legitimate field of skiers and snowboarders,” said competition director Eric Webster. “It’s not just people we dragged off the street.”
And that’s a bummer, because just think how entertaining this sideshow snowboard event would be if competitors were simply “dragged off the street.”
The waves were reportedly not consistent enough to hold the Mavericks Contest on Sunday, January 23, 2011, but it was big enough to apparently cause some problems for Orange County, California surfer Jacob Trette, according to a story in the San Jose Mercury News.
A Southern California surfer was in critical condition Sunday afternoon at Stanford Medical Center after almost drowning when caught by a large set of waves Saturday at Mavericks, a hospital spokesman said. Jacob Trette, of Orange County, was found floating facedown about 10 a.m. Saturday at the famed break near Half Moon Bay, Cal Fire officials said.
From the looks of this clean-up set and rescue footage (via KTVU.com) it was a huge day. Our thoughts are with Trette for a complete recovery.
[Update Tuesday, January 25, 2011: According to the Associated Press Trette is expected to make a full recovery. Good news!]
Maison T. Ortiz, a 15-year-old snowboarder, slid to his death on the Slide Mountain side of Lake Tahoe’s Mt. Rose Resort on Wednesday, January 19, 2011, according to a story on KTVN.com.
The boy’s uncle, Chris Hicks, says the 1:55 p.m. accident occurred after Ortiz and a friend decided to make a final run of the day on the Slide Mountain side of the resort. . . He says conditions were incredibly icy, and the boys thought it would be safer to walk down the mountain. . . Hicks says the boys removed their boards and helmets, and Ortiz crashed into a tree after losing his footing on the ice. He was flown with serious head injuries to a Reno hospital where he later died.
It continues to be a rough year for snowboarders at North America’s resorts. Our thoughts are with the boy’s family and friends.
In past years our policy has always been to roam the SIA Snow Show and see what catches our eyes or ears. While this create epic moments of serendipitous discovery it also means that we often miss some really cool shit.
This year we won’t have that problem because the SIA has created aniPhone app (and Blackberry and Android apps for those sad lonely, beaten down workers forced to use shoddy tools). It’s called SIA 2011 and was created by Core Apps.
Use the SIA Snow Show App to navigate the Show with interactive floor plans, exhibitor lists, twitter feeds, events schedules, listings for Denver bars and restaurants and create your own Show schedule.
The digital map is reason enough to download the app, but add to that a searchable exhibitor list (with booth numbers and full contact info), an events schedule (which has not been updated yet), Twitter feed, Denver Guide, and contact info for all the speakers at SIA and it is a mandatory piece of software for anyone attending the show. One of the coolest bits is that exhibitors in the list can be starred and or checked off the list and later viewed in an “exhibitors visited list.” Keeping track of who to see and who we’ve seen has never been easier.
After years of being at SIA adrift and unguided, the SIA Snow Show app comes like a light in the darkness. Click this link for the iPhone version. You other smartphone heathens are on your own.
After complaints about Quiksilver’s use of their old “If you can’t rock ‘n’ roll, don’t fucken come” tagline on a newsletter sign-up page on their Australian website reached New Zealand’s Advertising Standards Authority they weren’t too happy about it, according to a story on the National Business Review.
A complainant said the foul language is “unacceptable”, particularly as the brand is well-known among youth in New Zealand. . . However, the Complaints Board upheld the complaint, saying the brand appealed to under-18s and that the move to add in asterisks would not suffice to alter the meaning of the term.
Quiksilver complied and changed the image on the sign up page to a much more pleasant “Sign Up Now.” For the entire December 2010 decision and a peek into New Zealand rather silly advertising rules, follow the jump. [click to continue…]
When we heard first heart that Chris Cole was leaving Fallen Footwear for DC Shoes we were a little confused. Sure, there would be the increased paycheck, the increased promotion and pop-cultural visibility, but what about Jamie Thomas?
How could Chris Cole do that to his longtime friend and boss? More importantly, how could Thomas let him go? After reading the recent Zero Skateboards press release about how Chris Cole has become a “shareholder” it all makes sense.
“Cole’s loyalty and support have been an integral part of Zero’s success for the past decade. I’ve always included him in important decisions and brand direction, so it’s exciting to know that we’ll get to work together for the life of the brand. I couldn’t imagine a better partner,” says Jamie Thomas, founder and president of Zero Skateboards and Black Box Distribution.
We knew Jamie Thomas would figure out a way to get a piece of Cole’s DC cash.