Go skate day is a day to celebrate everything skateboarding; from skate brands, competitions, lessons, punk gigs, skate quizzes and D.I.Y screen printing. This year’s go skate had it all. You even got 20% off food when you showed up with your skateboard!
Poster by Terrible co.
So much happened on the 25th of June, it was so hard to keep track of everything. We started off with a special Go Skate Day lesson where we taught the participants how to use different obstacles in the skatepark. We had three groups, one for beginners, one for the mini-ramp and the other for the slappy rail which was provided by The Terrible Co! Once the lesson was over we gave the participants an exclusive hour to skate alone before the space was fully open to all and before the older lot came in. This allowed them to get comfortable around a skatepark like setting before it got too busy! Everyone seemed to learn something new and enjoy themselves. It was great to see them learn new things and figure out how to use the new obstacles!
photo by: @ryanbradley_1 on Instagram
Once these two hours were up, we opened the space to the public. We then waited and watched as more people turned up! It was amazing to see everyone coming in. Ade from The Terrible Co set up a TV playing their Go Skate Day special which was so cool! After a little while the park started to fill up and some rad stuff started to go down.
Photo by: @garryjonesphotography on instagram
The competitions began at 1pm, starting with the mini-ramp competition. This is always a fun one to start with, you can get some really creative lines going while everyone is fighting for a spot! It was great to create such an infectious atmosphere and it was amazing to see everyone getting involved and watching to see who’s’ won. After this, we had the slappy competition, where we used the slappy rail Ade brought in. This was interesting to watch as you can skate this obstacle from all sides and even use it as a regular rail; bringing out some real creative tricks. The last competition was the kicker comp, but we added an extra twist which was using both the launch ramp and the wedge ramp. This made it more tricky as they both skate so differently, but the competition flowed much better as both kickers were used rather than the one. Nearing the end of the day we hosted two games of S.K.A.T.E; basically the rules are that one person will set a trick and then everyone else in the game has to do that trick, if they don’t they will get a letter. Once the person makes S.K.A.T.E they are out. This one was brutal as there were so many hard tricks going and even the little guys got involved!
Photos by @ryanbradley_1 and @Garryjonesphotography on Instagram
Once we finished up in the box the lovely guys at Just Dropped In organised a punk gig. Entry was free if you turned up with a skateboard! Local Coventry band Gutter Puppy supported Regal cheer, from Brighton. It was a really vibrant gig with both bands absolutely going for it whilst sweating buckets up on the stage! They created such a great vibe around the village, you could hear it all around! The gig was amazing and these bands are defiantly ones to watch! I even grabbed myself some stickers and a pin badge and a CD from Gutter Puppy.
Photos by @eugene.ireland on Instagram
To top the day off Ade from The Terrible Co put on a ‘Cov skate Quiz’ in Common Ground. He managed to fill the room with some useful knowledge about the Coventry skate scene, most of it I didn’t have a clue about. It defiantly helped that we had some well-known Cov skaters on our team! Thank-you to them! The prizes were made up of some wacky wonder one-offs that will most likely not be forgotten.
Photos by me
Finally a big thank you to everyone who got involved and to those who helped; the volunteers who helped to set up, the coaches who taught with me in the lesson, the prize sponsors who gave us more than enough prizes, stall holders who brought a great atmosphere to the box with their creative products made from skateboards, stickers and amazing skater owned brands, Just Dropped In, Common Ground and Cofa Social who each did something to help the skaters take over Fargo Village! Thank you to Estella and Ade who both helped a tonne in promoting, organising and running the event! And thank you so much to you guys! Those who came to have a skate, enter a competition and to have a laugh! Couldn’t have done it without any of you!
See you next year!
Ade will be releasing THE Go Skate Day Edit collaborating with Jack Freeman, between the two of them they got absolutely everything on film, Head over to his blog to check it out soon!