Thursday, February 7

Long Beach ASR Wrap Up

By Keith Eric Davidson
EXPN.com

On the weekend of February 2-4th 2002, the Action Sports Retailer industry trade show blazed into Long Beach for it's annual carnival-like stoke out. Manufacturers of all Skate and Surf related gear, got a chance to show off their latest and greatest creations to the masses, shop owners and bros, in hopes of becoming the next Element or D.C. Most of the major companies were representing with very attractive females in those new fancy low cut, i.e. asscrack blazing jeans in hopes of drawing people to their display booths. Basically the show is a gigantic party, complete with complimentary kegs of beer, food, and luscious females. Many of the manufacturers put a lot of time and money into their booths, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to floss their blingedness.

Fine back pieces promote blurry photos.

Standouts include D.C. Shoes (of course), Podium (DVS, Matix,CLAE), and Blitz (Birdhouse, The Firm, Baker, Flip, etc.) of which the latter used the trailer of the new Flip Video "Sorry" to draw even more people in. Besides beautiful unnaturally enhanced women, another method of attraction are the promo items the companies give away, ranging from Dwindle's (Deca, Blind, Tensor, Darkstar, and Enjoi) company encrusted fly swatter, Girl's toothbrushes (actually used by myself), and Vans who had stars of the new Dogtown Movie autographing posters for their fans.

When not mesmerizing myself at the Reef booth, whose famous butt floss girls had an autograph line 20 deep constantly, I made a game of how much free crap I could score.

The list of swag included:
• Various T-shirts
• A Globe towel initially the size of a deck of cards and enlarged with water to full size
• Bottle openers
• Pens
• Posters
• Vans Jim Greco beer coozy
• Videos
• Badge lanyards
• And everyone's favorite: Vip tickets to the companies party's and video screenings.

Free crapola grabag smorgasborg.

Saturday night showcased the D.C. Party complete with the X-Ecutioners and the Black Label Party complete with Legendary vert skater Duane Peters' band "The Hunns". The New Deal showcased their long anticipated and amazing "7 year glitch," much to the approval of Long Beach locals and New Deal team riders Rob Gonzalez and Chad TimTim who both became instant stars amongst their homies. Directly after the New Deal video, On Video's fifth effort was shown, which included segments from Terry Kennedy and a Rodney Mullen retrospective, showing who truly is the inventor of all things modern in skateboarding today.

Sunday, in addition to everyones hangover headache, was Grind King's Paulo Diaz highest switch ollie contest which was similar to last years regular one. With $8,000 on the line (plus another $1300 or so kicked in by the crowd, ten dudes, including Paul Sharpe, Jake Nunn, and Quim Cardona, lept and pranced into very unnatural body contortions until Seattle's Alex Bland was declared the winner with an incredible 40" backwards snap. Seeing as how this was only a couple inches lower than the regular ollie last year, skating is truly starting to emerge as a stanceless thing.

In addition to winning the highest switch ollie contest, Alex Bland won the highest competitior award as well. .

A lot of product hype at this years show included a newer brand on the Podium List, Clae shoes, which showcased a clean line of shoes for the chillin crowd (I think that means everyone). Other cool products include the new Koston4 by Es, and Vans has a complete Dogtown inspired series of shoes along with the Tony Alva signature model. Ams who made the leap to pro debuted models from Blind's Cory Sheppard, Flip's Bastien Salabanzi, and Status' Jim Bates.

Despite the country's current recession, according to this years ASR show, the skateboard world, of which we live and breathe in is doing well and will continue to do so for many years.

Related Photos:
Long Beach ASR Pix