Thu 21 Jul 2005
The skatewave demo in Round Rock, Tx was a great success. Lots of skaters showed up and demonstrated a strong demand for a public skateboarding facility. I think the local city officials were impressed.
I really think Round Rock now recognizes the folly of prefab and would like to do a permanent skatepark. Now it’s just a matter of getting the city administration to allocate as much money for skateboarding as they do for Adult Kickball and Roller Hockey facilities.
The skatewave folks were nice enough. Someone told me they are helping the cause by providing a rallying point for getting a skatepark in the area. I said, not only that, but they are also exhaling carbon dioxide, which trees need for photosynthesis.
Skatewave didn’t field any members of its professional skate team (cough..cough..whores…cough). Instead, skatewave contracted with a skateboarder talent agency run by Greg Whitt of Minnesota fame. The two street skaters they hired were so-so. Sadly, they also were responsible for loading the skatewave equipment back onto the trucks.
During the demo, Skatewave gave away Angelboy skateboards made by Powell. These full setups are shrinkwrapped Wallmart boards whose graphics are a pro-Christian twist of the World Industries ‘Flameboy’ graphics. The main skatewave representative told me the tour was sponsored by "Skateboarder" magazine, but I didn’t see any logos for the magazine on the banners or other colateral.
Skatewave organizers played a complete Rolling Stones CD as the musical background to the demo. Someone needs to contact ASCAP to make sure Skatewave has paid the licensing for using ASCAP music at these commercial events.
The media was in force at the event. I was interviewed by the local talk radio station as well as the two newspapers. Mostly I talked about how skateboarding was a great way to get kids off couches and outdoors being physically active. I also talked about how the event was held in a public park where there were no fewer than 20 empty baseball fields.
The event also allowed me to network with some PARD folks in the neighboring towns. One town, Hutto, is planning to redo a concrete ditch where skaters have been riding and installing rails and such. He said the contractor is more than happy to build the ditch to support skating properly.
Here are some photos.
July 21st, 2005 at 10:17 pm
yo it’s drew. there’s a contest at the rec on saturday i think. you might already know. just thought i’d tell you because i think thats a big thing for the city and skatepark stuff.
July 22nd, 2005 at 1:57 am
We used to skate Hutto Ditch all the time. Like a month ago we went up there to find it destroyed. I never would of thought they would make it even more skateable. The ditch was right by the barns where they found the cyanide capsule. Some of the Hutto locals showed us a flat gap inside one of the barns before the police discovered the old chemicals. Probably was within a few feet of instant death.