So Tampa Am is next weekend. FINALLY! It’s been the biggest and the best amateur contest of the year since 1995, and the winner’s chance to make his or her life exist solely around doing tricks on a skateboard is guaranteed to go up exponentially. Just ask Luan, Felipe Gustavo or Trevor Colden. So, you guys have most likely come to expect the best from us, every time. Hopefully we deliver, and make it look easy. But easy is far from the case, and for most of us at SPoT 90% of the hard work of Tampa Am happens in the weeks and months leading up to it. Here’s just some stuff we already handled to make sure we’re ready for it.

I personally helped manage six Damn Ams in 2016, including the first ever Brazil stop, in order to guarantee spots in Tampa for the best skaters out there. SPoT Filmer Frank Branca created video teasers from last year’s contest that have hopefully been getting you all hyped on this year. He also filmed and edited a bunch of SPoT commercials that will play during the webcast. And he did all of that when he wasn’t busy making all of our SPoT Life edits, or skating. Todd Bratrud created the art for the ad, the vibe for the contest, and the colors of the course. He nailed it of course. Spring Break Manatee is the best. Allen Russell rebuilt the course, the SPoT crew painted it, and Frank made a video about it. That’s Allen on the left. Mean Gene, on the right, he helped. Chris “Cub” Preston put together a million different ads, flyers, renderings, site plans, etc. all in multiple formats for Instagram, Facebook, print, and whatever else is out there. Pintrest? He also updated the website daily with changes, tweaks, and additions. And then designed trophies so we have something to give to the winners. His job is never done. Cub, I know you’re reading this, get back to work! Along with SLS, we made sure sponsors were stoked to be a part of it: Nike, Monster, Mob, Bronson, Independent, TWS, Go Pro, etc. Tampa Am would not happen without them. Sorry purists. We created an entirely new format for contest, with Friday now being the first ever Open Qualifier day. While we were at it we decided to give Damn Am of the Year Zach Saraceno a spot directly in to the Finals. Big time. Eric McKenney checked contest results, watched video clips, read email requests and registered 250 skaters from all over the entire world, a lot of whom really don’t speak English and ask him stuff like “Tampa Am, I am bought plane ticket, how do I skate?” We all manned the phones and invited as many transition chompers as we know to come out and skate the Converse Concrete Jam, which has become a contest big enough for its own weekend but is still just one small part of Tampa Am. We hired the best of the best in judges (Kelly Hart, Hoffart, Billy Marks), announcers (Pang, Cannon), photographers (Bart Jones), and filmers (D-Frank), plus DJ Wade to guarantee that it continues to be the best contest on the planet. Jeni Armstrong bought flights, booked hotels, and made sure there was enough money in the account to pay for them all. We dove into every last detail of the 16 hours of webcasting we’ll be doing over the course of two-days with the help from our bros at the Auxiliary Channel, the company that produces this whole thing. They kill it btw. We all got on weekly conference calls with the crew over at Street League to coordinate marketing and ensure all obligations to sponsors are met and surpassed. Eric put new batteries in the microphones, because as they say, the devil is in the details. Oh and Schaefer, the boss man, he started Tampa Am in 1995, and still runs the whole show today. That ain’t easy. I’m not sure if I’m bragging or complaining here, but that’s just a little bit of what we’ve done so far. I’m hoping we didn’t forget anything.