The first-ever Crossroads retail show will take place at Black Box headquarters in Vista, California on January 21st and 22nd and will include a demo and best trick contest open to the public. The event is an expansion of the open house Black Box typically hosts the day before ASR, and although Crossroads will overlap with the January ASR show, Black Box president Jamie Thomas says the intention was not to become a competitor with ASR.

“If anything we’re helping give some of the people that may attend ASR more of a reason to make the trip out,” Thomas says. “It’s getting harder and harder for retailers and distributors in the skate industry to justify traveling to San Diego for business around the time of ASR, so we’re trying to give them a reason.” He also points out that Crossroads will really only overlap ASR for four hours, as the second half of day two will be dedicated to the public demo and best trick contest.

Black Box has invited a long list of skate manufacturers to exhibit at Crossroads, including Podium Distribution, Sole Technologies, and C1RCA—all of whom pulled out of the September ASR, citing poor timing. While inviting your competitors to exhibit product in your own backyard might not seem like the soundest of business practices, Thomas doesn’t seem concerned.

“So far, thirty-three different brands have confirmed their attendance. Hopefully almost everyone will get involved,” he says. “We’ve hosted open houses in the past with just our brands and they’ve been a success, so if we can get all the relevant brands in our industry in one place our hope is that the draw will be that much greater and the industry as a whole will prosper.”

Podium—which will return to the ASR floor in January—was one of the first companies to confirm their attendance. “This is another opportunity for us to be in front of our retailers in a unique environment,” says Podium VP Tim Gavin. “Jamie is a friend of ours and although he is a competitor, he is a friend. That is just another cool aspect of our industry, we can put the competitiveness behind us and come together as an industry. During times like this I think that is important, especially for the core brands that don’t have the cash cow that the jock companies have.”

In the past, Black Box has opted to host an open house rather than exhibit at ASR because of the larger retail show’s declining relevance in skate. “I feel that there’s very little justification for the financial commitment required to participate in ASR considering the show has very little relevance to skateboarding. If we were a surf or bikini brand, ASR would make sense. To be honest, I don’t think the skateboard industry has taken ASR seriously for several years,” says Thomas. “The open houses were to show what was new for our brands while sharing the culture of our company. This event will hopefully do that for the industry as a whole, we’re just the host.”

Tags: asr, black box distribution

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