Skateboarding and HalloweenI have written in depth about...

Skateboarding and Halloween

I have written in depth about skateboarding festivals. There is the IASC international Go Skateboarding Day, the Israeli Yom Kimpur communal skate, and all manner of small annual events. Some are grafted on top of existing festivals, others are purely skate-centred events. Of all the annual skate festivities, Halloween has become increasingly prominent over the last decade. Scroll through the Thrasher website and you will see videos from the last few years including the Halloween Hellbomb, Tempe Park Halloween party, and Burnside’s anniversary Halloween skate. Each Halloween in Hong Kong would be an excuse for a good communal skate, this year seemed to be no exception. House of Vans in the UK have held Halloween events, and Jenkem have posted a couple of articles on Halloween Costumes. 

This year Halloween has been much more low-key. The Covid-19 pandemic and social distancing impacts all sorts of festivity, Halloween has been no exception. So, social media has once again filled the gap with skateboarding folk posting their Halloween costumes even if not quite able to participate in a big Halloween skate session. 

Barrier Kult launched their own Halloween competition, inviting fans, disciples and Horde members to create their own BA. KU. inspired photos. Search the #BAKUHALLOWSCONTEST for a selection of the entries. The winning entry has all the paraphernalia of BA. KU., a skated Jersey Barrier, Pentagram, candles, with the added gore of decapitation. BA. KU. thrive on satanic imagery and their own very niche ritual language in which boards are referred to as daggers. They are a perfect marriage between the gnarly skate imagery of death and destruction and the Halloween festivities. This was nicely portrayed this October 31st with the release of Franky Villani’s new video part. Famous for his love of corny horror movies, Villani’s Halloween release included a comically gruesome claymation intro and a lot of seriously good skateboarding.

But, delving deeper into the skateboarding and Halloween partnership, do other sports share this bond? Or is skateboarding with its innate playful character simply more attuned to such hijinks? A quick search online found all manner of Halloween sporting events, there is Halloween hockey, football, swimming, and of course skateboarding’s twisted cousin, golf.

Yet, for skateboarding these events seem to take on a greater significance, or simply fun. Certainly with the audience provided by the Thrasher website, a local Halloween skate can get a global audience. I also think the ludic nature of skateboarding works well with Halloween, and more broadly all festivals. Festivals are intended to provide a catharsis, an opportunity for normal social roles to be relaxed or inverted. I am even inclined to argue that skateboarding at its essence is actually about spontaneous urban festivity, simply disrupting the banal.