Recap: Vans Shop Riot Finals Berlin 2022
From just a bit more of a 2-year hiatus since our Vans Shop riot Finals in Amsterdam in 2019 because the Covid Pandemic we reconnected with the European skate community over the summer for our Vans Shop Riot qualifiers and celebrated the Vans Shop Riot Finals at Skatehalle Berlin on October 21st and 22nd.
The weekend was a massive success overall with more than 1.500 spectators over the weekend. Obviously, some insane skateboarding happen as the qualifying winning shops consists of some of the best up-and-comer skateboarders in Europe. First on the agenda was a ‘cash for tricks’ session in Skatehalle’s bowl on the Friday. The jam kicked things off in true Vans Shop Riot style with riders from all 14 teams stoking each other up to go bigger and better.
The Vans Shop riot Finals ensued on Saturday, the heats preceding the finals showed that every team was hungry to bring the Vans Shop Riot 2022 title home. After a hard-fought battle, it was Venero (Spain), Skate CH (Switzerland), Skateboutique (Belgium) and Ben G (Netherlands) who made it into the semi-finals. However, despite the best efforts of Skateboutique and Ben G, they didn’t make it through to the finals, finishing third and fourth respectively.
The finals saw a head-to-head between the 2019 Vans Shop Riot Champions, Venero and the Swiss crew from Skate CH. Skate CH smashed out amazing synchronized runs while Venero retorted with a technical masterclass. With both teams skating so well, the final result was extremely hard to call but after careful consideration from the judges, it was Venero who were crowned Vans Shop Riot 2022 champions.
Guest appearances across the weekend included John Cardiel who manned the decks all weekend, the infamous AVE bench and Haku the husky who’s beautiful singing entertained the crowd all day. A special thanks goes out to Stefan Marx, the 2022 series artist and all the competing skate shops who were involved in the 2022 Vans Shop Riot.
Massive THANK YOU to everyone who helped and participate in the organization of this event. Without each of you this event wouldn’t have been possible.
Here’s the shoutout list (make sure you buy those people a Spritz or 2 if you see them in person):
Jasper Jones who handled all the creative and branding, Skatehalle team (Julia, Joest and Jon) for all the help setting up their park for the event and for letting us having the Vans Shop Riot at their facility, all the skateshops who participated to the qualifiers and finals, all our local marketplace managers who organized and hosted the local Shop Riot qualifiers, Stefan Floss and Manuel Schmieder, the Black Sparrow team (Kat, Georgie, Rob, Libby, Steffi) who handled the logistics and planning of the event, Elisabetta Sfameni for the legal and liabilities contracts, Danny Wainwright who helped me sourcing the infamous AVE bench, made sure we kept a tight schedule and oversaw the judges and MC’s, John Cardiel and Vinyl Ritchie for coming DJ’ing to the event, Jim Thiebaud and Mickel Garmendia at Deluxe SF for the Spitfire partnership, Skateistan crew (Alyssa, Oliver, Felix and James) for the trust and showing up with their pop up concept skate school container, Kerrie for the amazing PR work with our European medias, Chris Pfanner for bringing some our team riders to Berlin for the weekend and last but not least our behind the lens crew, Marcel Veldman (photog), Mayol (photog), Hans Smits (Intsta/social media) Jon Wolf (Main filmer and editor), Max Pack (second filmer) and Sergio Mario (second filmer).