Could be a lot of fun to have one of these in Perth.

We have the wind for it and the beaches.

Would be and epic show!

Thoughts?

would be great to see and alot of talent floating around perth

Perth has more than enough talent to fill 10 heats of 4 riders boosting loops.

Who needs international talent? We have enough here!

Have it at the Scarborough Amphitheatre.

Live bands, cheer leeders, food stalls. MEGA LOOP BABY! Len10 style with Perth flair!



That would get the crowd going.

That would be great

if you could involve the public in events such as this (as spectators) it would help[ validate the sport to a lot of people who only see or hear about the 1%ers that sometimes give the sport a bad name

Akwa said...
Well how do we get this up and running!?

It is a great idea, just need a bit of tenacity and ambition of individuals to get it sorted! Its not something we should expect any organisation to simply pull together for us on our behalf.

Depends on the scale, starting small is easier as there would be less upfront costs and much less event management to deal with....

But as a brief overview, its not easy, and perhaps this why we don't see as many as we'd like.

Develop and event plan to provide to all supporting agencies/companies. (They would typically not be interesting in just a quick chat on the phone to discuss another individuals good idea)

Then Get...
Council approval
Dept Of Dept marine safety event approval
Make you meet all requirmenets for Public Health & Safety - http://www.public.health.wa.gov.au/cproot/2705/2/Concerts%20and%20Mass%20Gathering%20Guidelines.pdf

Get public liability insurance for your event.

Would be good to get the following agencies onside for support/volunteers
WAKSA
Dept of Transport - Marines - marine rangers on standby in the areas
Local beach safety - life savers etc
Ambos/Medics - As part of the DoT approval you need some additional medic/ambos on site ready to treat injuries. also required for public health & safety for public events.
WA Police/Council rangers - www.crimeprevention.gov.au/Publications/PublicSafety/Pages/Planning_Safe_Public_Events_Practical_Guidelines.aspx

Major sponsors to help support....
Costs of media (flyers, art work, adverting, websites)
Cost of event day staff
Cost of equipment hire
Cost of support boat hire/feul
Producing Event merchandise
Event Prizes
Cost of refreshment/food carts

Sailing club regattas cover much of the above by the annual membership fees, own admin staff and own club equipment. May be a good idea to approach a club to back the event.
Or perhaps start your own official kite club with members as a lead up to the event

Once off events you'd need to plan and cover the costs for these with out of your own pocket, by donations, by companies volunteering their services, or by the funding and support offered by major sponsors i.e.redbull. Getting funding & support from these type companies is achievable but a formal review process not just a quick chat on the phone. Local sponsor may be easier.

Any of the event owners i would suspect would be more than eager to share just how much effort and personal dedication goes into planning and pulling off an event. Just goes to show how much effort they go through for the events we already have.

Im happy to talk to others interested in this.

i can assist with digital, media, sponsors etc.

PM me!

I think a warm up would be epic fun and would not really require too much organisation

On the topic of comps, it would be great to have a decent freestyle comp in Aus... 10mins of king of the air (everyone doing the same standard loop) and it is just as boring as a freestyle comp...

Perhaps a comp with a big air discipline involved as well as regular freestyle would be a good idea. No point wasting so much time, money and resources on something that nearly everyone competing in considers a joke (big air).

DaylightDebt said...
why not combine it with the L2L? infrastructure and event already in place.

make the race l2l with a downwind leg to scarbs finishing at the theatre.

Just a thought

If you ran the Ledge to Lancelin then to Scarbs it would be upwind

sir ROWDY said...
On the topic of comps, it would be great to have a decent freestyle comp in Aus... 10mins of king of the air (everyone doing the same standard loop) and it is just as boring as a freestyle comp...

Perhaps a comp with a big air discipline involved as well as regular freestyle would be a good idea. No point wasting so much time, money and resources on something that nearly everyone competing in considers a joke (big air).

Thats your opinion and to some degree I concur however a contest going large and people putting things on the line is exciting to watch for a lot of people. I also know that pulling any kind of contest together will be a huge undertaking and instead of whining about not having one we can at least have a stab at putting something legit together.

I am happy to discuss this further and make a contribution. Rowdy with your experience on the PKRA I am sure you have a lot to offer.

WA has the wind and locations to hold a world class event.

A comp for kiters and the crowd.... getting judged on various disciplines (Big air, Free Style/Wakestyle, wave) including crowd response.
Like Mixed martial arts for kiters, bring what ever you have to offer and have a crack at impressing the crowd and judges.

Technical ability will be appreciated by fellow kiters but the big stuff is what will gets the crowd going, the medias attention and the sponsor

Technical ability will be appreciated by fellow kiters but the big stuff is what will gets the crowd going, the medias attention and the sponsor

I think this is valid. If its going to happen at Leighton or Scarbs that is useless for a freestyle format anyway. (compared to our flatwater locales)

(Can we save that for another thread please?)

I see this as being a no holds barred, extreme, go huge expression session in 25 knotes +. (Not to be confused with pointed toes and flapping arms)

The response from a media, crowd and sponsor could be huge!

PM me if your interested in catching up with me and some others to discuss and flesh this out further)

Good example is X games Snowboarding half pipe.....

The guy that wins it every year, does all the same tricks except he just does them at 21 feet instead of 16 feet!
The scoring is based on technical and crowd appeal (being judged as height of tricks)

Fairly sure somebody with a telescope and a calculator could even provide feed-back to the judges on height of tricks... (vaguely recall there being some spooky math magic to work out height of something in the distance)

Lets spread the word and see if the public agree...

https://www.facebook.com/ScarboroughKingOfTheAir

I don't care what discipline of kite surfing/kite boarding/freestyle/wake-style/air-style/pointed toes & flapping arm/lawn-moving sub culture of kiting you favour... you cant not but help appreciate epic boosts like that and feel a little bit of pride in that....
how awesome our sport is that we can do stuff like that!!!!!!!!!!
You dont see S#1t like that in lawn-bowls!

sir ROWDY said...

AndyHansen said...
Good example is X games Snowboarding half pipe.....

The guy that wins it every year, does all the same tricks except he just does them at 21 feet instead of 16 feet!

Point being? The same thing happens in Freestlye comps... and in nearly every extreme sport. The other factor they all judge on is risk... if the guy who went 21 feet instead of 16 was suspended from a safety wire I doubt he would win.

I will agree that for the most part people who know nothing about kiting are more interested by a big air than a mobe7. However most people I witnessed at King of the Air South Africa weren't even really watching the event and couldn't care what the kiters were doing. For them it was just cool to be at a big event with pretty kites in the sky. .

I know some people want to run a "big air" only comp because it's something they can relate to and possibly even aspire to compete in, but to neglect the progression of the sport in Australia (i.e. running a decent freestyle comp as well) is pretty silly.

Obviously everyone is free to do and think as they wish, but that's my take on the subject.

p.s. I think the fact that we no longer have any comps is actually the reason why we have far less kite talent coming up in Australia than 5 or even 8 years ago.

You have a general lack of under standing what actually goes on along the coast line in WA, and just because you are a deciple of freestyle you shouldnt put some one down and regard their efforts as "silly" because the are not putting on a comp for some thing 90% of riders dont do to the extent reqired to be good.
Most outstanding events this season in WA were the Wedge Island wave comp, L2L race and LOC. Something that is accesable to every one and not just a few riders at Woodies 3 or the pond.
A big air comp is another such event where the average punter may want to have a go.

SugarQube said...

sir ROWDY said...

AndyHansen said...
Good example is X games Snowboarding half pipe.....

The guy that wins it every year, does all the same tricks except he just does them at 21 feet instead of 16 feet!

Point being? The same thing happens in Freestlye comps... and in nearly every extreme sport. The other factor they all judge on is risk... if the guy who went 21 feet instead of 16 was suspended from a safety wire I doubt he would win.

I will agree that for the most part people who know nothing about kiting are more interested by a big air than a mobe7. However most people I witnessed at King of the Air South Africa weren't even really watching the event and couldn't care what the kiters were doing. For them it was just cool to be at a big event with pretty kites in the sky. .

I know some people want to run a "big air" only comp because it's something they can relate to and possibly even aspire to compete in, but to neglect the progression of the sport in Australia (i.e. running a decent freestyle comp as well) is pretty silly.

Obviously everyone is free to do and think as they wish, but that's my take on the subject.

p.s. I think the fact that we no longer have any comps is actually the reason why we have far less kite talent coming up in Australia than 5 or even 8 years ago.

You have a general lack of under standing what actually goes on along the coast line in WA, and just because you are a deciple of freestyle you shouldnt put some one down and regard their efforts as "silly" because the are not putting on a comp for some thing 90% of riders dont do to the extent reqired to be good.
Most outstanding events this season in WA were the Wedge Island wave comp, L2L race and LOC. Something that is accesable to every one and not just a few riders at Woodies 3 or the pond.
A big air comp is another such event where the average punter may want to have a go.

I think I couldn't be further from a lack of understanding, but you can believe what you will.

Whether I'm a "decipel" of freestyle or not wouldn't change my view. I'm for progression of the sport in all aspects.

You obviously never read what I wrote properly, because at no point did I say a big air comp wasn't a good idea and at no point did I say that WA shouldn't have one... What I said was it would be silly not to use the event to it's full potential. Making a freestyle event alongside big air and helping to progress and grow new Australian talent and possibly world champions is a great idea. And when you use all that time and effort to produce such an event it would be silly not to fully capitalise on such resources... If you don't, then you have used up any funding that could have been used to produce another event (such as a separate freestyle comp).
Andy Yates himself probably wouldn't have had the push to compete in the world tour without a grommet-hood in great Australian freestyle events.

p.s.
The amount of people on this site who failed basic comprehension exams at school must be pretty high I think.