Creation skate park heads up

[pickle]

got talking to Tom up at Creation on saturday night over some chips and a burger    and he was telling me about their much needed plans for the park.
this is hard to believe......but the skate park part of creation is losing money hand over fist, the day before they'd taken £70 all day and this was before they take into account wages and till floats! 

so what they are planning to do is to rebiuld the bowl but slightly diferent, also the area at the back (not to sure as to where yet though, will be turned into a 'biginers' section so they can get schools and youth clubs down to learn BMX and Skateboarding, so some of the park will be lost to this.

they are also in the process of opening up a drop in centre for Physio and rehab for people who've injured themselves either biking or as Tom had done, fall 12 feet from one of the walls! 

he's a top bloke and it was good to get an insite as to what they are planning.......i know some of you Creation regulars may not agree or like what they plan to do.....but if they don't try and get it at least breaking even it may well be lost and turned into more climbing walls as this part of Creation is keeping the rest afloat!

 

[JT71]

I guess the problem is that once the weather get's good the youngsters ride out doors, if it rains on a sunday morning it get's packed.

[MartyC]

They also need to make it so that it flows better, there are no lines anymore to take you from ramp to ramp and you have some great ramps stuck in front of pillars and it's a little squashed up at the front.  TBH I was a little disappointed with it this time around  .

[jedi]

i loved it there.more than corby in fact.
if  they build a bowl it'll be 

[pickle]

they had a great bowl which was in pieces behind the big vert ramp, this is what they will re-build 

have fun at saffy mate 

[jedi]

corby 12 til it closes!!

[evamedia]

Does anyone think that any skatepark in this country makes money, regardless of the time of year?

[perry]

it would help if they had bmx on their webshite 

people arnt going to go there if they dont know it exists

[Trev]

yep, the website needs sorting big time. the skatepark link just goes back to the climbing centre.

there's a lot of wasted space there i find.

i don't like the run up to the jumpbox either. by not being able to air properly, i can't get a decent run at it.

a foam pit would attract more people for sure.

better lighting when it gets darker.


maybe trying to sort out some sort of aircon system.

[Fashionrider]

i LOVE the creation guys

there all so sound

buttt

They dont have a clue about bmx, skating etc and thats why there losing money... the new spine section cost them so much money... and to be fair no one really rides it... i travel 50 miles to ride corby bowl. some people travel 100 miles to ride there form/resi.... i dont think anyone goes epic to ride that specific ramp and its a waste because they could have used the space and money and made something special!


the park needs flow, theres not a single hip in the whole park... the kids even make there own and session it for 3 hours at night! they need imput from the local kids because they are the ones putting the money in!

they dont need to make it into woodward just add some hips, maybe a wallride, some taller ramps and add a bit of flow!




This isnt a dig at the park before anyone gets all defensive!

[pickle]

don't worry Kane......i know it's not a dig....but hey, it's a public forum so you can if you want to you know 

i think you've hit on some good points there mate, have you spoken to the guys there to try and give them some input?

[Voodoocars]

I agree that there isn't much flow in the park.Doesnt bother me too much.The new bit that was built is a waste of space as far as I'm concerned.The bowl was great and I was told by staff ages ago that its gonna go where the mini ramp is - to creat a flow from the midi. I think that the jump box needs moving away from the 1/4 a bit more as well.
Like Trev says, the lighting is rubbish at night.
I still thinks its better than Corby tho'.

[pickle]

from a novice's point of view, i kind of like the way it doesn't flow.......only cos when you're at Corby, it flows so well that you just can't use anything due to the pro style riders just following eachother round flowing the park.......

[evamedia]

the new spine section cost them so much money... and to be fair no one really rides it... 

I've never been, but no one rides a spine, that sounds a bit weird, what's wrong with it.

The one thing that annoys me about Corby is there's no spine.

[Trev]

not being a spine expert by any means and i've never been over it, but it did feel very tight and steep.

[pickle]

11k is what it cost them!  but i agree it is a tad on the tight side to be of any use.

i thought Corby had a spine at the end of the Resi ramp?  or is that a vulcano?

[kingkeef]

not being a spine expert by any means and i've never been over it, but it did feel very tight and steep.

Being a spine "expert" now I would have to agree that the  bits of sloping wood are too close together (Technical HUH)
And the concrete  was too hard  too..

[Trev]

11k is what it cost them!  but i agree it is a tad on the tight side to be of any use.

i thought Corby had a spine at the end of the Resi ramp?  or is that a vulcano?

Volcano

[Longun]

It's the first ramppark I've visited on a bike so I've no real basis of comparison but I liked the fact that there was a good variety of transitions so you could work your way up comfortably. I didn't like that the only 2 things I could see myself jumping over involved either making a decent high air or carving a wall the wrong way (for me) to get any speed into. I can see the point about if the park flowed better it would be harder as a novice to 'get in' in a normal session but the way it's layed out at present, I kept finding myself coming to a sort of dead end (of course my limited ability would also be a factor in that).

Just had a thought - doesn't one of the Hoffman or Mirra PS2 games have a park editor? Maybe someone could build a replica on that, then move bits around to find combination that flows better? 

[perry]

thats true longun , but the games are far from realistic , it wouldnt be hard to hop from one side of the park in the game ( i copied a local park and it was awful to play )

once they sort the site out so people know they have a skatepark  it wouldnt be hard to have a saveable layout with scaled ramps people could shift around on ms paint then email back to them , itl be an easy way of essentially doing a survey of what people want

most of all it needs promotion , im guessing the climbing side does well because the climbing community knows about it

skateparks need mental stuff these days to make people want to travel to them and to get people to go during the summer , not just as something to do when its wet . imagine a bowl on its side with a mellow takeoff into it , hop in carve and hop out . you know crazy shit 

[Shings]

AFPMSL


Want to earn some money....

MAKE THE fookING KIDS/PUNTERS PAY!!!!!!!
Put the prices up- when I went to Corby last it cost me 50p more than when I went previously and half the park was closed.

I have watched countless kids just walk in and out and no one ever checks them...  for example and I know they didn't have bikes but....  Before the start of Saturday nights session.. 6 kids just walked in off the street and sat down in the park to watch!

A few weeks ago at 10.00am as they opened and Karl, Ian and I que'd to pay about 3 "locals" just walked in... and not any of the regular crowd either....


So no wonder it makes no money.... among all the other bits and bobs that have been mentioned.

J

[Voodoocars]

What does 'AFPMSL' mean?

[Shings]

absolutly fookin pissing myself laughing

[TwoBobRob]

11k is what it cost them!  but i agree it is a tad on the tight side to be of any use.

11k??  Jesus.........   they got turned over.



All skateparks have a dilemma.  They need to cater for pros, wobblers, very young kids and wannabes..  Virtually every skatepark in this country simply isn't big enough to cater for everyone. And if you could find a building big enough, you could never afford to run it.

If you build flow into a park, you rule out most wobblers and young kids. You also introduce collision lines a lot of the time.  Keep the park linear and segregated and you alienate the pros and the wannabes.

It's a tricky one.   Creation is big enough to mix and match though, so it could be turned around.

BUT

it would need some money thrown at it, and that in itself is more than likely a problem.

[Philbert]

personally.....and this is just my opinion!

i think the guys there are all cool. and the previous owners were cool too!

that skatepark has got progressively worse ever since it opened. the biggest nail in the coffin for the skatepark was way back when they put the climbing wall in. i know why they put it in to bring revinue to the building. however. they took out the one thing that made it a good park to ride on a bike. the rythmn section! a huge spine, a huge volcano, a 17ft vert wall then on return the 'widowmaker' jumpbox and a smaller jump box then a 7ft hip so it could be done again. the amount of riders that used to sit on the deck of the bowl for that was unreal. when they built the climboing wall so many riders have disappeared. the replacement is the pathetic excuse of a jump box and step up box they have now that confines you to one small area of the park and doesn't flow with anything!

also when the wall was built a huge hip was taken out that formed part of a huge street course that had two driveways, one of which got smaller as time went on, and a step up rail thing for skaters. a subbox and quarter and flatbank that backed on to the mini ramp in its old position and formed lots of variety for tech and transfer lines.

as the park gets slowly smaller its layout gets worse. the space isn't used wisely. to ad insult to injury they take out the bowl 'because no-one used it anymore' ffs if they'd have fixed it, it would b widely used! it felt like a railway track in the end! now we have a spine street setup that was 'designed with inliners in mind'. wtf! why not build a spine that all disciplines can ride, its too tight realistically for a bike and every skater i know hates the damn thing!

the whole layout is just little pockets of different things to ride with transfer/flow lines almost non existant!

for the skatepark to have any kind of future at all it needs some major revamp, and soon too! we're now coming into the lowest revinue season as good weather is upon us.

a beginner section may bring in some schools. could be an option! but at the end of the day, and it always has been the key to a successfull skatepark. you've got to keep the local skaters and bmxers coming through the door! they are the bread and butter for a skatepark and what gives a park a large amount of its identity. skaters now have next to fook all to use at the park now. a few street driveway bits down the side, the mini and vert, and most of the vert skaters now go over to corby! personally i don't think the skatepark has too much life left in it!

my view as to what they should do: (for what its worth)
   build a good bowl! every discipline can use a bowl. and its a major pulling point for a skatepark.
   build a rythmn section for riders, possibly down the side of the climbing wall.
   build a decent street course with a good variety of quarters, ramps, driveways, subboxes, rails etc. different sizes to cater for all
can't see it happening though!