Once they put the sword in on the 11 set Nyjah Huston went to work with a big flip front board, a nollie heel nose slide, and then kept delivering at The Crossroads Best Trick contest on Thursday afternoon February 4, 2010. Chris Cole pulled out all the tricks including his weird flip up, run down the rail land back on the board stuff, but it was only enough for second. Nick Merlino got third.
The February 2010 ASR Trade Show’s requisite fashion show went down Wednesday and Thursday at 3pm in the far corner of the main floor. Early attendees were greeted with glasses of champagne and comfortable couches surrounding the catwalk.
Once the lights went down and DJ Albert Rosario started dropping beats the standing room only crowd watched as 47 different looks from element, Fox, Volcom, O’neill, Levi’s, Rusty, and others went down the runway. Sadly, this was not a swim show.
ASR’s fractionalized trade show (February 3-4, 2010) had it all broken down into three zones: cool fashionista upstairs in Class (above), surf dogs and street fighters down the escalator in Access (below) and all the skateboarders in the PetCo Parking lot (way below).
The main isle of the ASR Access Show. See that’s stripped wall? That’s the end.
You don’t realize how much energy all the skate companies bring to ASR Show until they’re at their own venue across the street. We’ve never done so much walking just to see all our people. Not that we mind. We’re just saying.
More photos and commentary will be posted later. Right now, it’s time for the Grant Brittain signing in room 25B upstairs and the over to Tum Yeto HQ for the Skate Park of Tampa x The Skateboard Mag Amatuer Awards.
ASR Live’s Jim Shubin (the new VP of Sales for True Love and False Idols) and ASR’s Group Vice President Andy Thompkins cruise the isle of the ASR Access Show and offer up a sneak peek. The one question we have (albeit rhetorical) is: where did the ASR Show go?
When the Snow Industries of America announced it was moving the SIA Trade Show to Denver after a few decades in Las Vegas we were not happy about it. In fact, every time we thought about making travel plans for SIA 2010 we remembered where it was being held and put it off to another day.
Having spent part of a late January in Denver in the past, complete with 30 below zero temps and 50 mph winds nearly blowing us off the highway, we weren’t looking forward to making the trek. No matter how many times C3 Worldwide president and SIA Board Secretary Bob Gundrum listed the reasons why the show would be better without the all-night partying and drinking that Vegas delivers, all we could think about was those $49 flights, $35 hotel rooms and nights at the Hard Rock’s Center Bar. After 20 years in Las Vegas we had it down and weren’t into everything changing.
But that was before the show. Now, at the other end of four days with friends in one of the nicest, cleanest, convention centers in the world, we’ve mostly forgotten about the rest. And there was a lot to forget. Police storming our hotel the night before we arrived, the drug dealers who said “Hey,” as we walked down the street, the pimp having words with two of his employees in the lobby of our hotel, bums fighting in McDonald’s at 8 in the morning, and Denver’s general urban-blighted-ghetto feel faded into the background. We left town with a much more positive view of the SIA venue change and it seems we’re not alone.
According to ActionWatch December 2009 comps in core shops were up over October and November, but closed out the quarter 13 percent down, according to a post on Transworld Business.
This number gives the fourth quarter first prize in lowest sales declines of the year for the shops on the panel, but by a very small margin,” said Cary Allington. “Also, Q4 2009 had the “easiest” comparison of the year since that quarter was so bad in 2008, so we were actually expecting (or at least hoping) for an even smaller comparative sales decline.”
So that means it’s not getting worse, worse. It’s getting better worse. And that’s good.
Capita Snowboard’s celebrated their 10th year anniversary at the Denver SIA Show on January 31, 2010. Luckily for us, the Tahoe Dangerzone was there to get it all down on video. . .
In a handful of Schedule 13gs filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday (January 31, 2009) investment firm BlackRock Inc. reminded us all that they own action fashion. After they purchased Barclays Global Investors from Barclays Bank PLC on December 1, 2010 they own just over five percent of the shares of Volcom, Quiksilver, VF Corp, and Pac Sun.
In fact, with 1.5 million shares of Volcom, 9.6 million shares of Quk, 6.4 million shares of VF Corp and 3.4 million in Pac Sun they’re in to action fashion for over half a billion dollars. . . that’s swinging some pretty large . . . shares.
Chris Nieratko, shop owner, writer, porn reviewer has a solid little round-up of the skateboard economy in his latest column for ESPN/Action titled Skate of the Union.
I, for one, am glad to say goodbye to 2009 and pray 2010 is a better year for skateboarding. Like most every facet of our nation’s economy, skateboarding took a big hit in in the past year. It may not appear that way from the outside, what with the biggest contest purses in history and big budget Nike commercials on television featuring Paul Rodriguez and Ice Cube, but trust me, things ain’t pretty in Skateville.
Follow the jump for comments from Jamie Thomas, SPoT’s Barak Wiser, Nocturnal’s Mark Brandstetter, Deluxe’s Jim Thiebaud and others.
Ericka Schriefer, a 24-year-old snowboarder from Fort Collins, Colorado was riding alone on Copper Mountain’s Formidable Trail Sunday, January 31, 2010 when she hit a tree fracturing her head and neck, according to a story on Coloradoan.com.
Schriefer. . . was found Sunday morning in some trees off an expert trail at the Copper Mountain ski area. . . Schriefer was airlifted to an area hospital where she later died. The coroner’s office says she was wearing a helmet.
