Competitions

To mark the tenth annual Popularity Contest, we got in touch with Travis Nabe, one of the organisers, to find out what's up with this year's event - what to expect if you're going and why you should be sad if you're not!

A little over two weeks from now, the highly anticipated Shred Cologne 2013 will go down at the Abenteuerhalle Köln Kalk in Cologne, Germany. While the hot phase of the preparations has just started for the Shred Team and the riders list is ever growing, we asked Be-Mag correspondent Seán Ó Dálaigh to find out what the competition will be all about this year!

"That little p-rail in the tunnel. Bladers from all over the country will really have to skate it?" is what I was thinking on June 1st, 2013. We've had problems with weather during previous editions of East Side Jam, but this time it was literally pouring at noon, just when the competition was set to begin. After cancelling the contest we decided to do a little jam at our only spot with a roof above our heads. Fortunately, after some time spots have mostly dried up, and the p-rail became just the first spot of the competition!

The Nocturnus event started years ago as an all-night street session in Brussels, Belgium organized by Laurens Van der Cruyssen. Obviously an event like that is not easy to organize every year so in 2006 we gladly took the concept of an all-night skatesession to the big skate plaza in Hasselt, Belgium where the lights stay on all night just for us.

June 15th was some kind of blading holiday in the Czech Republic because of the Street Side Games 2013 going down in Kladno, right next to the capital city Prague. This year was a little bit different from the previous two: The whole competition was held in a completely customized skatepark with hand made obstacles set up just for this day.

Six days to go ladies and gentleman. In less than a week around 700 bladers from all over Europe, Brazil, the United States and Australia will gather in Berlin for what will be the biggest blading event in the Summertime since years. To make sure you didn’t miss anything, we once again collected the highlights for you. This is definitely not going to be the average blading event, but an action packed weekend with several unique side events! A true Blading Festival!

The Texas Skate Series San Antonio competition started off the way all San Antonio comps do, meeting up at San Pedro park. It was originally a ledge spot in the middle of town that eventually was designated as a "skate park" of sorts where they added a nice p-rail, curve ledge box and the famous angle iron ledge. It is not much but it is a perfect meet up spot for a competition like this. Being that the comp was on Easter weekend there were already people camped out with tents trying to secure their spot of the park for the Easter festivities.

Only 16 days until Summerclash... that’s only a little more than two weeks. The weather is finally getting better, the last sponsoring deals are getting finalized, our tradeshow partners confirmed and the street course is planned. We are almost ready to welcome our guests from around 30 different countries for that one special weekend in the summer of 2013! In case you haven’t been following the Summerclash website and Facebook, here’s a little recap!

Last weekend was the weekend of the Panhandle Pow-Wow VII. Be-Mag was there to cover, and we've got an excellent article by Southern Scum's Chad Anthony to let you read how the competition went down. The article is accompanied by a huge amount of photos by Drew Humphrey, capturing all the best moments of the competition. Oh and there's also a sweet edit!

Ian Ball shines a spotlight on a strictly taboo subject in blading. We've all experienced the pain of it, we see it happen to others and look away, or stare and laugh. It happens to our favourite pros, whether we like to think about it or not, and it makes rubber-boned groms into hardened shredders. Time to learn more about the beast we call falling down.

In a few weeks time New Orleans will be the scene for the Bayou Bash, the local blading competition. This year the competition is taken back to its roots on the streets of the Southern city. We checked in with organizer Andrew Waddle and talked about the history of the competition, skating in New Orleans and got a preview of the spots.

Against all odds, photographer Mathieu Hennebert and myself arrived in Nykobing on Friday, March 8th, around 5PM and 4 hours late. It only took a cruise on a ferry, too many hours sitting on a bus and an unexpected train ride to make it there. Sweet. City wasn't cold yet, but that wouldn't last too long. Thankfully, the great folks over at RAD were kind enough to put together an amazing weekend to warm up the atmosphere!

Surrounded by oil tanks the brisk March air hit me as we walked past cars to a side door. I made my way inside and I could hear the energy pumping through the walls. Without even stepping into the park, I knew that this blade competition wouldn’t be like all the other ones.

As if the two sets of photos from Vincent Morretino weren't enough, here's another photo set, this time by Be-Mag photographer Sam DeAngelis. Enjoy these photos of Eric Miller, Mike Torres, Russel Day, Steven Tat and Victor Arias!

Check out the second set of Vincent Morretino's Bitter Cold Showdown 2013 photos, covering the Pro and Am competition of what has been the last ever Bitter Cold Showdown! Thanks for a great job, Vince!

Be-Mag contributor Vincent Morretino brought home some amazing photos from Bitter Cold Showdown 2013. First up are the photos from this years trade show and the Aggressivemall Champions Bowl competition. Part two releasing tomorrow!

Stoked for the Bittercold Showdown but unable to make it to Michigan? Be-Mag will be giving you all the latest updates, but if you want more than photos and edits, have a look at the Orion live-stream. Orion is streaming the contest live from the skatepark, so you can sit in your chair and watch the entire thing going down.

It's starting to get busy in the Modern Skatepark in Royal Oak, Michigan. People are gathering for the Bittercold Showdown. Soon the park will be full of some of the best bladers in the world, and the competition will be heating up the cold Michigan winter. Eric Miller is the first to drop an edit from the BSCD2013, his pre-session edit called "Some Dudes on the Blades", features skating of Eric Miller, Toe Jorres, Wake Schepman and others, enjoy!

As every year we are going to do the best we can to bring you constant updates from the Bittercold Showdown! Additionally we will be present with our Be-Mag booth and a special Be-Mag studio setup to capture even more amazing content. But we can't be everywhere all the time, so we want your help to document the BCSD in a great way!

As every year, Be-Mag will be part of the Bitter Cold Showdown tradeshow representing the brand and selling our goods. Read below what we're preparing for you and why you shouldn't miss stopping by our booth!