Snowboarder Shaun White is undertaking a "different type of risk" as the majority owner of a "two-day action sports, arts and music festival" called Air + Style this weekend at the Rose Bowl, according to Fred Dreier of the WALL STREET JOURNAL. The event's budget could surpass $5M, all "coming out of White's pockets." White: “It’s definitely a large number we have to overcome. Pricing the event has been challenging. It’s a difficult business to grasp.” Dreier notes the venture "marks a new era in White’s steady progression as a businessman," who as a teenage skate and snowboard phenom "amassed a portfolio of sponsors." White after a Gold Medal-winning performance at the '06 Turin Olympics "stepped into the apparel world, with a line of youth clothing at Target and a ski-and-snowboard fashion line with the snowboard company Burton." But the events business is a "much riskier venture than selling jeans." Major venues "charge hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars in hosting fees, and musical acts and athletes demand appearance money." The construction costs for ramps, jumps and stages "can send the final bill skyrocketing." To recoup costs, a promoter "relies heavily on ticket sales and sponsorship revenue." First-time events "almost always" lose money. White’s event also "must muscle into a crowded sponsorship market that already supports the summer and winter X Games, Dew Tour, Street League Skateboarding competition and dozens of smaller events." White said that he is "prepared to compete with the X Games for viewers and sponsors." He has "asserted himself in all manner of decision-making;" doing things such as designing "logos, T-shirts and marketing fliers for the event, and has chosen the bands, athletes, artists and even the food trucks that will be involved" (WALL STREET JOURNAL, 2/20).
WHITE-HOT EVENT: In California, Keith Lair reported the event "won’t even be held inside" the Rose Bowl, but "on the huge grounds surrounding it." Seventeen Olympians "will be competing" and there will be 18 bands performing. White said, "The idea is it’s more than just a competition and more than just a music festival. It’s a graphic look at culture and sport. It’s not all about athletics. It’s not all about music. It’s also about clothing and cool companies. We want a totally different element floating around this event." But Lair wrote there are "more issues than convincing winter action sports athletes and musicians to come to Southern California in the middle of February," including the matter of "making snow and keeping it at the right temperature when Southern California is in the middle of a 70-degree-plus heat wave." The plan is to "see how well this event does and then launch it around the rest of North America." White Enterprises COO Keith Yokomoto said, "We’ve had a pretty good surge. One thing with entertainment is that you just don’t know. One of the hardest launches is an entertainment property and there is no shortage of entertainment here" (SAN GABRIEL VALLEY TRIBUNE, 2/17).
