MS6104 Research Diary

 Prissick Skate park is a skatepark located in Middlesbrough, it is a perfect example of how a business and community can benefit. When the the park was free to enter which led to a hit with the youth back in 2005, according to Teeside Live (A local newspaper) the facility attracted up to 80,000 people each year but if you go there now it's a complete ghost town. This was really good for the community as it took youngsters off the streets and into the skate park. In 2009 the council made a decision to introduce a membership scheme to keep up with the demand of users and enforce security on sight. This was cheap, I recall a day session costing £3 and an annual membership card costing £10, however I  noticed that a number of skateboarders stopped skating the park because they were required to wear a helmet if they wanted to skate. So if I was to open up a skate park I would banish this rule of skateboarders not having to wear helmets. However the membership allowed the council t...

 Over the years skateboarding is becoming a decline sport, skateparks are closing and brands and skate shops have had to adapt in ways that keeps them in profit, this gets rid of the stigma and meaning behind the brand. It is my mission to motivate people in Manchester to skate not just on go skateboarding day but indefinitely. Brands and shops all around the world carry out these events in ways to promote skateboarding and boost sales. My call to action is to create a social press release and get a trend on major social networking platforms to advertise Black Sheep Skate shop and promote skateboarding in Manchester. 

I am wanting to create a social press release for the event that takes place in Manchester on go skateboarding day.  Before the day of the event I want Black Sheep skate shop, all the professional skateboarders and all the skate brands who are attending to promote the event on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.  On the day I want all of the alumni to post videos and photos of people skateboarding and add the hashtag: #mannygoskateboardingday into the captions of the posts. A big mission is to get the hashtag trending on all social media platforms.

The International Association of Skateboard Companies represent multiple skateboarding brands and orignally set up go skateboarding day to push people to go skateboard on the day. Every year skate shops and brands create events and competitions on the day to motivate people to come out, I myself attended an event in 2014, hosted by Black Sheep Skateboard Shop, an independent skate shop located in Manchester who hosts a go skateboarding day every year. The shop teams up with skateboarding brands such as Stance, Dickies, New Balance and Real Skateboards, Baker and Girl Skateboards. My press release would  create awareness of an event that  happened in 2019 as an event wasn't hosted in 2020 due to Covid-19. I will contact known brands with well known professional skateboarders to come to the event and carry out demos for the public to watch, it is important that I pick brands who have well known members in their team. One brand that I would contact is Plan B who have a well known...

Statistics and evidence of skateparks closing all across the UK shows that skateboarding is a dying, but with big companies jumping onto the streetwear bandwagon you would think that the skateboarding scene would be at an all time high. Skateboarding appears in Burberry campaigns, Hermes are selling skateboards for $3,000 a pop but skateparks are being destroyed, skateboarding companies (Mainly independent shops) are becoming bankrupt, and a concerning lack of interest has been found in the sport. On the other hand a lot of skateboarding brands have benefitted from their target audience shifting from skateboarders to street wear stylists. As much as I hate conglomerate companies who have benefited from skateboarding such as Supreme and Nike they have brought in a ridiculous amount of money into the sport.  The mission is to raise awareness that skateboarding is heavily declining, whilst brands such as Palace, Supreme, Vans, and Nike are capitalising the sport through fashion.

 The Milestone for this event is the 21st of June, this is the date that Go Skateboarding Day is held on each year, the origin of this date was set because it also falls on the first day of the summer season.

I decide to chose an event that I have a strong interest towards, International Go Skateboarding Day gives a lot of to the skateboarding community, not only does it allow skateboarding brands to benefit from advertising but also influences young people to skateboard. 

 This would be promotion for WWF as they are a well known charity and have the voice that people will listen to. On top of this I will involve influences such as Leonardo DiCaprio and David Attenborough who both have a well established amount of reputation of being environmentalists.