Nitro Circus is a great show , but the courses are smaller . X Games is an amazing event but it ’ s not designed for the audience . X-Fighters is probably the best FMX contest in the world , but it ’ s just one discipline .
Our event was a different thing altogether . It was for the audience , there was a show , but there was a serious contest element as well .
I ’ ve always been interested in how events are organized , what does and doesn ’ t work , and how shows engage an audience . Over the past four years I ’ ve been working on smaller shows and I came to a point where I could take the best bits from my journey and put them all together in one huge event .
Surely it was still a huge risk , though . We ’ ve had Dew Tour , X-Fighters and a whole raft of high-profile events that have fallen off the map . What made you think yours would work ?
For sure , there is a risk . If we were sure of the outcome , everyone would do it , right ? There ’ s no doubt I went into it a little ‘ in the dark ’, but we pre-sold more than 10,000 tickets , so we knew we were on the right track - and the infrastructure of the stadium meant we could bring a great experience to the audience .
Extreme sports and live entertainment are at a challenging time right now . The way the world works , everyone is more focused on the façade , through social media and smartphones , and everybody is building their own superhero . Back in the day they wanted to see their superheroes !
Yes , live entertainment is at a challenging time , but I think we need to keep plugging away and believing in it , because being a self-built superhero will fade off and live entertainment will revive again . People will grow tired of staying at home watching Netflix and sitting on their phone , and will want to go and experience life again . I live in that hope . With that hope and my huge passion for extreme sports , I put all my effort into promoting events now .
Awesome . Take us through Ullevaal Xtreme . What did we all miss out on ?
Well , we started with an opening act , then had a small freestyle show showing the sport ’ s progression . We had a Norwegian girl to become the first European female to land a backflip on a motocross bike . We had a huge pre-show on 7000 square metres , where we had a skateboard , trial and drifting show as well as Norway ’ s most unique cars .
We then had a scooter and BMX demo with the big mega ramp , then had the speed and style qualifications . It was the biggest speed and style track in the history of the sport , which was pretty huge , and the final had three riders instead of the usual headto-head format .
Then we had supercross with six riders , including Josh Hill and the best riders from Sweden , Denmark and Norway . It was only a short race where the last rider got eliminated every lap until we had the winner .
Following that we had freestyle qualifications and finals , then Daniel Bodin did a short snowmobile demo , leading into a big climax with a 26-rider trains and a big pyro show .
Epic ! Now that you ’ ve had time to reflect , are you stoked with how it went ? What did you learn for next time ?
The stadium had 20,000 seats and I set myself a high goal of filling them . We had 13,000 , which - for a ski and soccer nation like Norway - is great for a first year , but I ’ m seeing it as something to really build on next time .
It was pretty cool when Josh Hill tells you he got the same feeling as when X Games was held in the LA Coliseum , and all the feedback from riders was really great .
There were a few things to take away from it . The app we used for judging worked well , but for future events we need to ensure it works faster for live shows like this . I think next time we ’ ll also shorten the event by 25 minutes by maybe removing one of the disciplines and tightening things up .
The ramps and track worked perfectly though . The supercross was popular and the BMX and scooter riders were really excited with the inflatable landing from BigAirBag .
Now that we have all of the infrastructure and I have the experience of promoting an event of this size , I ’ d love to take it somewhere like Germany where there ’ s a lot bigger interest in motorsports and we can fill stadiums . But we ’ ll need stadium partners to do that , like I had this time . u
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Extreme
André Villa
sports and live entertainment are at a challenging time right now ...