Speaking of the which, how stoked are you on the women’s line up this year and what are you looking forward to seeing from them?

Honestly, I think that as a viewer I’m the most excited about the women’s field. We have such a cool roster of women riders from veteran level, hyper experienced riders like Hana Beaman and Robin Van Gyn to the freestyle prowess of Elena Hight. And you’ve got these cool stories coming together where you might have like Anna Gasser against Marion Haerty. Both of them are at the best of their respective disciplines, but it’s about how their strengths in what they’re so good at doing are going to play into their approach to the course. I think that’s going to be really fun to watch.

Pro riders have been shaking up the competition format for a while now. We’ve seen it in the likes of David Benedeck’s Gap Session back in 2007 or Danny Davis’ Peace Park. Why do you think these alternative comp formats are so popular among the riders as well as the viewers?

You know, I think at the end of the day the reason why there’s adaptation and evolution is that those like myself — those that are so close to what’s going on in the industry and have so many close relationships to the top riders and a little bit of the voice and direction within the industry — we just see opportunities and the evolution that our beloved pastime deserves.

I know that, for me, over the last 10 years of the evolution of this event, I’ve had so many conversations with riders and industry leaders from around the world and it seems like snowboarding has been headed in this direction for fifty years.

“I think the venue is going to reward the riders that are best at adapting to changing conditions”

Like, honestly, with where the film side of the industry has evolved to, where the competition side has evolved to and, ultimately, where our current world view is, the current state of how we even consume media and the fact that now the technology exists, it’s attainable to do live events like this from remote locations.

On that point, when you hosted the test event this time last year, the quality of footage and camerawork was one of the things that stood out the most. Can we expect to see something similar for the tour itself?

We’re hoping for the same, or even better. That was definitely a test of what we had been working on last year. I think the big difference is that we’re going to be trying to do the same thing this year with much bigger race drones.

One of the big tech hurdles we’ve had is that watching an event with just an opposing perspective of a mountain with riders going down it. It’s really hard to feel connected to what you’re watching on TV, but now we’re able to bring a really immersive viewing experience.

The example I’d give is this drone solution we’ve been working on. We’re providing live coverage from these follow drones which give an almost video-game level, third person angle, right over the rider’s shoulder. I think it’s really gonna showcase to people who both snowboard all the time and people who’ve never snowboarded before this experience that is captivating. Viewers should really be able to understand what’s going down.

“We’re providing live coverage from these follow drones which give an almost video-game level, third person angle, right over the rider’s shoulder”

We’re shooting with different cameras and we have to have these pretty high powered RF and microwave transmitters to be able to broadcast from a race drone live to the world. It’s pretty wild the level of technology needed to do this! Our main live partner Uncle Toad’s Media Group are going to be working with the team on Red Bull TV where we’re going to be broadcasting the event live. We’re stoked! I think half the fun watching this contest, frankly, is just gonna be seeing how well or… for that matter, how bad we screw it up! [laughing]

Obviously, this isn’t an event that comes together with a few mates and some shovels, can you give us some idea of the collective effort and work that’s gone into getting the comp face event ready?

Yeah, I mean I started talking with Jackon Hole about this event almost four years ago. That’s how long it’s taken to bring it to fruition. We did a month of work in the summertime three years ago and actually built two test features then, just getting on the same page with Jackson Hole Mountain Resort and Bridger Teton Natural Forest.

On top of that, over the last two years we’ve been putting our team together, which started with myself, Circe Wallace, my agent and partner in a lot of major projects, Liam Griffin, who ran the Burton Global Series for a number of years, and I brought on our COO, Carter Westfall, who comes from an NBA and more mainstream sports background like a year and a half ago.

And we have a number of great investors who really believe in what we’re doing and we’ve been bringing on brands for the last year and a half which, in a Covid year, is really difficult. So hats off to all of our partners that are literally making this possible, namely Red Bull, Yeti, Backcountry, GoPro. The list goes on!

“I think riders know that the runs that they take during the contest might be some of the best lines that they ride all year”

Frankly, I think what we’ve set out to do, for a lot of ski areas, would be really intimidating. I’ve spoken to other resorts that have told me that. In Europe, I worked for two years to bring an event there which just ended with resort management saying it was too risky. I would say that this event is at least a first of its kind, proving that it’s possible and creating a model. It’s pretty unique.