Snowboarder Shaun White's Feb. 21-22 Air + Style music and action sports festival at the Rose Bowl will include rapper Kendrick Lamar, DJ Steve Aoki and rock band The Flaming Lips "among the bands getting top billing," according to Eddie Pells of the AP. The list of athletes "is impressive, too," as Olympic medalists Sage Kotsenburg, Joss Christensen and Mark McMorris "are among those competing for a $100,000 prize purse." Athletes "will share center stage with 18 bands for a weekend of sports and entertainment." White "calls it a 'sports, music, Coachella thing' that he's hoping will take the so-called lifestyle sports of snowboarding and freeskiing to a new level." Pells noted Air + Style "began 21 years ago in Innsbruck, Austria," and a second event "was added to the Bird's Nest in Beijing five years ago." White "bought the event last year and decided to bring a third leg to his home state" of California. Construction began earlier this week "on a 16-story snow jump for 32 snowboarders and freeskiers" (AP, 2/12). Asked how he has tailored the event to L.A., White said, "I came in with new logos, hashtags, and things to modernize the brand of Air + Style and kind of give it a new look, bring in more music and things like that to shape it a little differently. Los Angeles is a big one. I’m really kind of using it as a footprint that we’ll then go back to the other events with. It’ll be a much larger music event, like Coachella-type where there are multiple stages, and you can walk around." He added, "This is a tour, and L.A. is the last stop, so all of the riders are there pretty much to win the title of Air + Style" (LAMUSICBLOG.com, 2/11).
