Vendors pay the money for the exposure to their brand. Since a lot of them come from overseas, they had to have spent a LOT to come. I’m not sure if making this investment year after year makes that much of a financial sense for them once the brand recognition is there and they don’t see an increase in sales especially in this uncertain tariff economy.
Before esk8con we had this small gathering in Vegas thanks to Michael Espinoza’s planning.
Would invite you all to turn your attention to the events we do have.
Camping at both Willow Springs and Pats Acres
If we don’t support, we lose.
I will be trying my best to attend the event at Willow Springs. I won’t be racing just supporting, but I will be bringing an off road board to explore the nearby mountain/hill
Planning has started and I’m bringing friends
@jack.luis regarding your dreams of an off-road gathering.
Bentonville Arkansas would be quite the destination.
All the trails!!!
Explored that area on earth and it wasn’t as intriguing to me 
I do wanna see who could esk8 up this the fastest
We can call it Mary Hell Ratz
I want to go but idk if I want to do the drive just for the race. Are there anything going on before/after the event?
I’m a lot closer, but kind of feel the same. I’m more into group rides and track time/practice for people not as interested in wheel-to-wheel racing. I was considering racing at esk8con again, but had way more fun in practice and especially the qualifier than the actual races.
Something I think would be ideal for me is alternative races/track events. I honestly think a pursuit-style race would be really fun and less nerve-racking while still allowing racing against others, but I may be alone on that. For those not familiar, usually those are done with 2 people or groups that start 1/2 a track apart and try to catch each other, but you can do other styles, like having a staggered start where you divide the average time around the track by the number of people and release them. Usually, there is a lap limit, and the fastest time wins, but if you’re caught by someone else, you lose, and it can be finished just by people overtaking.
Anyway, I don’t know how that would actually be accomplished. I do understand track time is already very limited, just with standard races. Just my two cents on what would make me more likely to come to races. Just watching and supporting would be fun, but the drive makes it a tough sell.
Con26 cancelled? Coming from FB chatter so I don’t really believe it, thought i’d better ask here.. ?
Yeah it looks like Esk8con is canceled this year.
I have a couple of ideas to bring the cost of the event way way down. The first question would have to be does anyone really care about the location? Rural Ohio perhaps?
I might get lynched. No thanks
Absolutely not even a possibility. Yall really need to get out of the city every once and again if you’re not faster than some dumb hillbilly with a rope what are you even racing for?
I can see why the ESK8 industry is going through tough times. Everyone who is into ESK8, already has a board (or multiple boards) and boards last a long time (so no planned obsolescence like an Apple IPhone). And less demand, means less sales. Less sales means less money for Electric Skateboard R&D and profits. As such, many of the Electric Skateboard Manufacturers have already gone out of business. Only the low cost manufactureres (like China) or premium manufactures (working on low overhead costs) will survive.
Heartland is already in Ohio. That’s enough of that state for me
Yup. Innovation is needed for people to purchase/upgrade their already great boards. For esk8, it was 3-link, Duality, gear drive, better cells that really enticed me to make new purchases of board and parts. What else can they possibly come up with to get their sales number up? I think the benefit of solid state battery would be the next great innovation.
Skateboard itself turns away a lot of new buyers because bikes are just more common to people. Until I see esk8 sold at Costco, we are still the ugly step child.
Offer Duality as an option. 
Where you at bro? I’m between Cincy and Dayton and am down to hit trails any time.
There are rural areas that are legitimately unfriendly and potentially dangerous. I don’t know about Ohio, but being from the southeast, there are places there I really feel uncomfortable.
There are other big issues in rural areas, especially for group rides. One is just finding lodging. Another is that in most rural areas, trying to do a group ride would absolutely be unfeasible IMO. You’d have a high probability of the whole group ride getting mowed over by a truck. Urban areas are more used to sharing the roads with non-car vehicles and have lower speed limits. I have PTSD from bicycling in less urban areas and stopped because I felt the need to buy a gun after being run off the road multiple times.
Edit: Also, people flew to Esk8con. Being rural makes travel costs for people not driving much much higher and the whole thing much less convenient and therefor less likely for people to come.
Funnily enough, this is what the people on the other side say about going to downtown areas 
