K2 Snowboarding has named former We Are Camp Director of Marketing Thomas Johnson as their new marketing manager.
“We couldn’t be more stoked to have Tom leading our snowboard marketing efforts,” said Hunter Waldron, K2 Global Brand Director. “His skill set and experiences are spot on and will no doubt lift our marketing abilities. Equally valuable to us is his energy and stoke for snowboarding as a sport and a culture. I can’t wait to see what we are able to do with him onboard.”
For the official word from K2, please follow the jump.
Skateboarding can be a positive force for change. When the Mayor of New Orleans declared they would not comply with the new immigration ban Phillip Santosuosso from Humidity Skate Shop decided it was skateboarding’s turn to take a stand as well.
Click the link, read the interview and understand how skateboarding (and you) can make a difference in the world.
We all saw it on Instagram. We all loved it. And now, Jenkem Mag has tracked down the man to get the word straight from his perspective. Sadly, it’s not as happy a story as you might imagine from joy of the clip. Click the link to read an interview with Oakland, California’s Avery Baxter. And if you want to help him out, he signed up for PayPal and you can send him something at AveBax [@] gmail.com.
To anyone who’s spent a day staring out the window of a Minoan Line ferry looking for surf in the Agean Sea this vid will seem like fiction. Yes, we spotted wave with potential off the coast of Delos, one fall during a storm, but nothing like what Nixon surfers Marlon Lipke, Yannick De Jager and Gony Zubizarreta found on this trip.
Chances to score are always very low considering the consistency of swells and the difficulty to predict conditions. Timing is key, local connexions are priceless. All they needed was a call: a friend and local shaper guaranteed them that the conditions displayed on the weather forecast would turn the coast into an idyllic playground, and it did.
Guess so. This whole edit was snagged in one day, and when the day was done, so was the surf.
On New Year’s Day 2017 Josh Friedberg, the executive director of the International Skateboarding Federation started a quest. He announced on Instagram that he would be doing a Tre Flip a day, every day for of the entire year. Having once surfed every day for 96 days straight we know the mental havoc commitments like this can induce, not to mention how they can get in the way of normal life.
For the first week we could tell Josh was having some trouble, but after that, he was popping Tres day and night all around the world. Soon we found ourselves looking forward to Josh’s latest updates from somewhere cool doing a trick we’ve never learned.
Sadly, this all came to an horrific end in Malmö, Sweden after 147 straight days for Tre Flipping . Friedberg explains it like this on Instagram:
I’d been excited to hit up @pontus_alv‘s TBS spot in Malmö and on my last day there two days ago, @chrispastras hit me up to let me know he was going to skate there with @chriscote. I was hyped, we taxied over and ran into @brycekanights on a solo mission rolling and shooting some photos. Changed out a broken bearing thanks to @vernlaird‘s generosity. I had a great time skating with him, @rothdigga@kyleberard and @meronek for the past couple of days and was ready to roll at one of the coolest looking DIY skate spots on the planet. Started messing around and the place was much tougher to skate than it seemed on videos. Much respect to Pontus and everyone that has put it down at TBS. Ended up focused on this little launch to wallride spot. Started getting into a few and BK started filming with his GoPro. Finally committed to one and in a second it was all over. Huge thanks to Bryce, Dune, Chris and the skaters from the Czech Republic that got the ambulance called and kept me company while I couldn’t move. The Malmö emergency room was great and they took good care of me. The bad news – I have a Maisonneuve fracture. The force of dislocating my ankle twisted my leg and spiral-fractured the top of my fibula, tore the ligament between my tibia and fibula and broke a little bone in my ankle. The good news is they determined I could wait and have surgery after I flew home the next day. That’s a whole other story, to be continued … #ohno#hallofmeat
We’re sad to see it end and wish Josh the quickest recovery ever.
Over the past decade Billabong has had nothing but trouble running their own retail stores. Not to rehash it all, but they’ve bought retailers and online retailers and partnered with other retailers all without ever gaining traction or experiencing any real success. But they’re planning to fix all that with the hire of Jim Howell as chief financial officer of the company.
Mr Howell has spent the last 10 years leading the finance and treasury division at Nordstrom, one of the largest retailers in the United States, where he oversaw significant cost management improvements, capital management and growth initiatives. . . He played a key role in the implementation of Nordstrom’s highly successful omni- channel retailing strategy, which has demonstrated consistent best in class financial performance.
Sounds like they have the right guy for the job. We hope Mr. Howell is up for a challenge. He starts at the Bong on June 12, 2017, and will be based in California. For the official word from Billabong, please follow the jump.
On May 25, 2017 Snow Industries of America sold the annual SIA trade show to Outdoor Retailer,Interbike, and Surf Expo owner Emerald Expositions for a reported $16.7 million. SGB Media has a great overview of the details along with a full rationalization by SIA President Nick Sargent. Here’s how he spins it:
“The sale of the SIA Snow Show to Emerald ensures the best path forward for a vibrant and successful trade show and it expands SIA’s ability to help support our members and drive the winter sporting industry forward,” Sargent says. “That’s been the goal for me in this organization from day one and I’m proud to report that we’ve accomplished that goal and are setting ourselves up forward on a new mission.”
It’s a nice way to explain it, but in reality this is simply consolidation in a down market for trade shows. The name of the new show says it best: Outdoor Retailer + Snow Show. It’s a rough time for trade shows and for SIA to get any cash out of the show is nice work by the team, but don’t be surprised if “snow show” is dropped from the official name of the show in 2019 and everyone goes back to calling it OR Summer and OR Winter.
The biggest question for us is what is SIA without a trade show? Well, according to Sargent it’s SIA 2.0. He says the organization will now have more time, resources, and funding to focus on things like retail support, education, participation, industry gatherings (but not trade shows), research, and consumer outreach. In other words, all that stuff that we get press releases for, but never pay much attention to.
The best news for us, however, is that Emerald is still hunting for a new show location after pulling out of Salt Lake City and currently Denver, Minneapolis, Las Vegas, Chicago, Indianapolis and Portland are in the mix. The possibility that the show could end up back in Las Vegas (where it should be) as soon as 2019 is filling us with joy. If Las Vegas is all we get out of this deal, we’ll be happy.
Alex Sorgente nailed down a win at the 2017 Vans Park Series in Malmö, Sweden on May 27, 2017 edging Tom Schaar who finished in second.
Demonstrating incredible accuracy and lightning speed throughout his runs, Sorgente remarks, “I’m ecstatic. I can’t believe I won here again. There’s really no limitations at this park, you can go big, long grinds, big airs, everything mixed together makes it really great.”
For the official word from Vans, including the full results, please follow the jump.
Heading into the final day of the 2017 ISA World Surfing Games in Biarritz, France, the ISA has announced that the host country Team France has made history and won their first-ever Team World Championship in the competition.
Team France got off to a spectacular start with Pauline Ado and Johanne Defay finishing with Gold and Silver in the Women’s Division earlier this week, and now Jeremy Flores and Joan Duru have advanced to the Men’s Semifinals on Sunday. With these results, no other team is in a position to reach France’s point totals.
K2 Snowboarding has named former We Are Camp Director of Marketing Thomas Johnson as their new marketing manager.
Over the past decade Billabong has had nothing but trouble running their own retail stores. Not to rehash it all, but they’ve bought retailers and online retailers and partnered with other retailers all without ever gaining traction or experiencing any real success. But they’re planning to fix all that with the hire of Jim Howell as chief financial officer of the company.
