| In May 2003, ArtofSkateboarding.com turned one year old. At that time,
it struck me that it would be nice if there was some way to bring the community
of collectors together to meet face-to-face, hangout, skate, talk shop,
shoot the shit, etc. I got to work trying to come up with something. At
the time, I was busy with my real job, and it was also Summer. I
figured anything I planned needed to be later in the year when it was a
bit cooler out….and I had some time to plan better. |
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I wanted a location that would be easy for folks to travel too and
would be relatively new. Louisville had just recently opened their
skatepark, so it seemed the perfect location….at least for the East
coast folks. When "Bobcat" from Sleestak.net stepped up to help host a
simultaneous AOSfest on the West coast, the decision for Louisville was final.
But there was soooo much more to plan and do.
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First and foremost, I wanted this to be a very informal event….just everyone
shows up and sessions…..no booths, no banners, no dj or booming sound system,
etc….again, just whoever wants to show up, shows up. I posted up the info on
ArtofSkateboarding.com about the East and West coast events, when and where,
who to contact, and so forth with explicit detail given that this was an informal
event. Sure enough, the director of Louisville's park and recs board emails me.
He was nice enough, but wanted to inform me that if I was planning some big event,
permits would be required. After explaining to him that it was an informal event
and more like everyone is just picking a day and showing up to skate, he let us
slide on the permits….as he said, there was not much he could do if a bunch of
people just happened to show up to visit at the same time. He was really cool
about the whole thing and said if we had planned events in the future, just to
let him know so he could help out next time (I think that was his little dig at
me too….just a joke). So that was it….everything was set….August 1-3, 2003 the
first ever, annual AoS-Fest was being held simultaneously on both coasts!
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On Friday August 1st, some friends and I planned to caravan up to Louisville.
I flew back in town the night before but had to wait most of Friday until some got
of work and others came over from Atlanta. Our crew would consist of myself (Chris Solomon),
Phil (Smithgrind) Hosey, Barry (OldTimer) Gilliland, Buddy Lee, Patrick Jackson, Jamie LeMay (from Atlanta),
Rob (XRT666) Tidwell (from Atlanta), Tim "Tdawg/T2" Jackson (from Atlanta) , and "Ohio" Paul. We all met
at Phil Hosey's house and had a little session on his sweet steel layered mini-ramp while waiting
for everyone to arrive.
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The Brew Crew mini-ramp (5 1/2' tall x 20' wide with 8' wide decks)
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Around 7pm, we finally got underway….a late start…but then, we were in no rush….most folks
would not be there until tomorrow anyways. On the way up, we planned to stop by and skate
Insanity skatepark in Madison, AL, but after checking it out, we decided it best to head
on….more time to skate Louisville (in my opinion, Insanity is disappointing…aside from
one "odd" concrete bowl, the park is mostly prefab junk, and the folks who run it are
very "corporate", non-skaters).
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Hosey gases up for the trip
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