Yesterday the new PWA calendar 2016 got released and we were wondering why the freestyle discipline seems to be less and less attractive to event organizers?
2011 were 6 events on the calendar, but since 2012 there’s a bug in it somewhere. This year are again only three events for the men (Podersdorf/Austria, Fuerteventura, Sylt) and 1 event for the women (Fuerteventura) on the list. The list is the provisional calendar, though, it still might change.
What is your opinion?
when the cd-market was about to collapse every sissy untalented bollockers who felt the wind of change and feared his/her safe income was screaming: ‘the music industry will be dead, internet will kill it.” now the music industry is booming and blooming better than ever (never seen so many bands and songs) and the thieves of record companies are gone. with today’s technology level and the with unleashed creativity of windsurfers more competitions will be held with a way better coverage and scoring system than pwa could dream about. good examples are the french rooted windmeet freestyle tour (live scoring)… Read more »
comparing these local battles with the pwa is like comparing the x-games with local skate board contests.
no offense, but its not about the quality of the contests but the marketing, money and effort to gain new spectators and not staying in the same small circles.
I see some very well backed-up arguments. Windsurfing events have a hard time to find non-windsurfing sponsors due to the image of windsurfing. It is promoted as a hardcore sport. I mean, is ski and snowboard promoted by doing the craziest tricks? On facebook it is, but for the main audience, it is promoted as an all familie experience. Not as an hardcore sport. It is up to the customer how to experience the sport. On windsurfing, manufacturers decide by producing and promoting only by performance. But there have to be a mass of people who windsurf and from there… Read more »
I think we should be glad for how things are because because they could be way too worse. My point is that windsurfing is such a phenomenal and broad activity that is beyond apprehension for public and sponsors likewise. It has nothing to do with kite, surf, wake, fake and etc. crap. Everyone practicing this activity (not exactly sport), no matter the level, or even having the urge getting into it, should be considered a preacher to the mislead and mediocre.
Would be really nice to get an interview with PWA officials about the upcoming tour and future goals – especially for the freestyle discipline, the wave tourstops (intened new spots) and possible solutions to increase the tour.
@C7: maybe it’s possible to get in touch with them for an interview
90% of the windsurfers in the world are survivors from the 90s and still struggles to do simple maneuvers like tack and jibe after 25 years of pratice. So talking about culo, spock or flaka they just don’t get it at all. Some of them even hate freestyle. They prefer talking about sail size and how they hate sailing in gusty wind. So the audience for freestyle event is just very very very small. It’s basically only windsurfer who practice it.
And this surely is different for wave or slalom where the criteria that you reserve exclusively for freestyle do not apply?? Obviously a double forward speaks to them much more than a flaka. Or do 90s windsurfers hate all competitive aspects of windsurfing??