OT: Red Bull Crashed Ice

[Philly85*]

Place was absolutely **** packed tonight. Couldn't see **** but still cool enough to be there. Downtown is abuzz, weather is sweet. All in all a good day in Edmonton.

 

[WayneGreatzky]

Congrats to Canadian Scott Croxall 2015 Crashed Ice World Champion!

He finished 2nd in the race but won the season on cumulative point total. Way to go buddy

15,000 people apparently in attendence

http://www.redbull.com/ca/en/stories/1331711304620/scott-croxall-crowned-2015-champion

http://www.redbull.com/ca/en/storie...-the-dream-win-team-title?items=1331711211105

 

[Nugey McNugeson]

Went today, and it was a great atmosphere. Downtown was absolutely buzzing! Foreshadowing what's to come when the new arena is built perhaps...

 

[CantHaveTkachev]

Busiest I've ever seen Jasper ave in my lifetime
Pretty cool atmosphere and an unreal night in terms of weather...felt like playoff weather! The buzz felt like 2006

 

[n7]

Congrats to Canadian Scott Croxall 2015 Crashed Ice World Champion!

He finished 2nd in the race but won the season on cumulative point total. Way to go buddy

15,000 people apparently in attendence

http://www.redbull.com/ca/en/stories/1331711304620/scott-croxall-crowned-2015-champion

http://www.redbull.com/ca/en/storie...-the-dream-win-team-title?items=1331711211105

70k tonight.

Was insane how many people.

Pretty fun time, though stopping the LRT at University or Health Sciences station and kicking people off to buses to get further to the south side = wtf...

 

[AnInjuredJasonZucker]

Lot of people down there, and once the action started, it was really something to see. I caution anyone against watching the coverage from other cities and comparing it to watching it live in Edmonton. It should be fairly obvious that a television production will present the event in a much more exciting manner.

The presentation for the Edmonton event was I'm sure, first-rate. Red Bull is very good at this, and it's in their best interest to make sure that the entire event/city is presented in the best possible light.

 

[doulos]

Sounds like it was a great time. I was certainly worried with the weather and the setup, but awesome to hear it went so well. Would have been fun to be down there.

 

[Up the Irons]

very cool event. Great atmosphere. Some things they hopefully learnt from it was the very poor site lines for 80% of the people there. If there is a next time, they need to pick a location that is more spectator-friendly. It was great to have it downtown, but not much for actually seeing anything. Maybe Connor's hill/Gallagher park.

 

[McShogun99]

I forgot it was yesterday and booked a dinner reservation downtown. Needless to say that I didn't find parking and had to cancel. It was pretty awesome seeing downtown busy like that.

 

[Replacement*]

Busiest I've ever seen Jasper ave in my lifetime
Pretty cool atmosphere and an unreal night in terms of weather...felt like playoff weather! The buzz felt like 2006

Seriously? Theres no comparison to the electric buzz felt around the city in 2006 or anytime we have hosted the Grey Cup.

Crashed Ice is a sport where most of the attendees couldn't name a handful of the competitors going down the track. Seems like the main thing at this event is taking selfies, hashtagging that you were there, and wondering what else to do because you can't see anything.

Its a spectacle of sorts but not something that I felt connected with at any point. Spent 2hrs watching event on Friday and very little watching event on Saturday.

What I experienced more than riveting entertainment was hype. If anything the crowd is more entertaining then whats going on on the track. Trouble with an event like this is its not at all like continuous action (hockey) that draws you in. Its racers going down a shoot that you see for about 3 secs and then wait several minutes for the next skaters. On Friday the waits being 30minutes at times. I left the event both nights before it was complete as I found as a racing spectacle it was kind of tedious.
Basically the sport is this. Be the first one out of the gate and not crash and you win. Plus with the runs only taking around 20secs theres very little racing drama to it.
Would be like going to an indy race track and the races were only one lap. tbh I wouldn't find that very riveting and didn't find this enticing either. Actually even prefer Bobsled to this as Bobsled runs at least last 2 minutes.

lmao at the 70K attendance figure released by Redbull itself. Pure fiction.

Redbull overestimates attendance in the hope that people see this as some kind of big event to perpetuate and fund. I don't think there was 15k people there. Redbull just elevating numbers for a B circuit circus that can't even get network coverage and that fewer cities are caring about. Edmonton got this because in reality theres very few places that would even bother with it.

 

[ThePhoenixx]

Was in the Shaw beer gardens.

Absolutely packed.

A herd of humanity after the race was done.

Great time. Great atmosphere.

Needed more food though.

 

[CantHaveTkachev]

Seriously? Theres no comparison to the electric buzz felt around the city in 2006 or anytime we have hosted the Grey Cup.

Crashed Ice is a sport where most of the attendees couldn't name a handful of the competitors going down the track. Seems like the main thing at this event is taking selfies, hashtagging that you were there, and wondering what else to do because you can't see anything.

Its a spectacle of sorts but not something that I felt connected with at any point. Spent 2hrs watching event on Friday and very little watching event on Saturday.

What I experienced more than riveting entertainment was hype. If anything the crowd is more entertaining then whats going on on the track. Trouble with an event like this is its not at all like continuous action (hockey) that draws you in. Its racers going down a shoot that you see for about 3 secs and then wait several minutes for the next skaters. On Friday the waits being 30minutes at times. I left the event both nights before it was complete as I found as a racing spectacle it was kind of tedious.
Basically the sport is this. Be the first one out of the gate and not crash and you win. Plus with the runs only taking around 20secs theres very little racing drama to it.
Would be like going to an indy race track and the races were only one lap. tbh I wouldn't find that very riveting and didn't find this enticing either. Actually even prefer Bobsled to this as Bobsled runs at least last 2 minutes.

lmao at the 70K attendance figure released by Redbull itself. Pure fiction.

Redbull overestimates attendance in the hope that people see this as some kind of big event to perpetuate and fund. I don't think there was 15k people there. Redbull just elevating numbers for a B circuit circus that can't even get network coverage and that fewer cities are caring about. Edmonton got this because in reality theres very few places that would even bother with it.

Edmonton police gave the estimate, not Redbull

did u even go yesterday? cause the TV didn't do the crowd justice...like I said, there was probably 10,000 on Jasper alone watching on the big screens, you literally couldn't move from 97th to 100th street...not to mention packed at Churchill square and packed solid inside Shaw conference center (holds several thousands

plus all the people watching on the hill

easily 70k there...they caught a perfect storm...great weather and free admission= a ton of people

 

[davidsitar]

I would estimate way more then 15k. I arrived a bit before the final just after 9 and it was an absolute zoo downtown with mass amounts of people everywhere. I am not that great at estimating figures but I would certainly say more then 15k showed up for the event.

 

[Soliloquy of a Dogge]

Good to see an event like this create buzz and an awesome atmosphere in the city.

That said, it's a niche "sport" that doesn't appeal to me so I wasn't interested in checking it out.

 

[millpoo]

An unabashed success if you ask me. It was madness for the start, but as the races went on, people started to move around and it was much easier to find some personal space. PERFECT weather.

Hardly any security, lots of people packing their own drinks, a great atmosphere all around. Here were some of my favorite moments:
- A guy dropped his cell phone on the ice. My thought was, "holy ****, major safety hazard." No worries, guy just picks up a kid, lifts him over the barrier. Kid grabs the phone and gets heave-ho'd back over. Brilliance.
- When a skater was way out of it, he'd just go down the course "for the high 5s."
- A few of us started singing O Canada and it wasn't long before a few thousand had joined in. Good bumps, man. Canada, baby.
- Walking back into downtown, a few of the skaters were being ferried on a gator. The skaters were so jacked! High fives and props all around.

The sight-lines were pretty weak in some spots. Also hard to follow or hear what was going on for a lot of it. Need a few more video screens placed along the track.

All in all, I can't say I've seen downtown and (especially) Louise McKinney Park alive like that in a long, long time. I hope it's back next year!

 

[Aceboogie]

great to see downtown like that. Man if the Oilers ever make the playoffs the energy would be great. The energy at the race was all positive, don't think I saw any hooligans or people just there to mess things up

Somehow got into the VIP section, had one of the best seats in the house Could see 85% of the track.

Only thing to improve on would be putting up a screen near the middle of the track, I had no idea what was going on (didn't really care, just enjoyed the races)

And the beer gardens could be a little better organized (maybe 2 beer garden sections). It was packed and took an hour to get a drink

Not sure if Edmonton will have the finals next year, but a stop here would be great. The river valley looked incredible last night

 

[doulos]

Common Replacement.

I know you were pretty down on the event but to a tee almost every single person that went down there had an excellent time and isn't that the point? This might be a case where you need to just admit that it was a great event for what it was. Not perfect - lots of room to improve I bet, but a fantastic time for a huge majority of the crowd that atteneded.

 

[Replacement*]

Edmonton police gave the estimate, not Redbull

did u even go yesterday? cause the TV didn't do the crowd justice...like I said, there was probably 10,000 on Jasper alone watching on the big screens, you literally couldn't move from 97th to 100th street...not to mention packed at Churchill square and packed solid inside Shaw conference center (holds several thousands

plus all the people watching on the hill

easily 70k there...they caught a perfect storm...great weather and free admission= a ton of people

Its a Redbull estimate which came directly from a Redbull staff tweeting and also statement on the Redbull site and which is complete fiction. Yeah I went yesterday.

in terms of numbers I was talking about the numbers actually there on the hill. Which couldn't hold 70K if you tried. Gallagher park on a CLEAR bank in a huge bowl shaped swath of area holds only 15K. That's it. To be 70K would take river to top bank (minus SCC which is huge) and an area 5 times as wide as Gallagher. Basically if you had a contiguous sea of people stretching from louise McKinney bridge to SCC that would be 70K people. A lot of this area you can't stand or sit anywhere and theres trees all over. its a dispersed crowd. Gives the effect of a greater crowd than there actually was.

All that said its a lot more people showing up on Saturday than I expected from Fridays crowd which was maybe 1-2K. I really don't know a thing about the event so to me there was no diff between Friday and Saturday. Guys skating down a track. tbh I don't really get the appeal of the event. Didn't really pull me in. That said I imagine its a different experience if one is able to get a track side position. Far away it doesn't really captivate imo.

 

[Replacement*]

Common Replacement.

I know you were pretty down on the event but to a tee almost every single person that went down there had an excellent time and isn't that the point? This might be a case where you need to just admit that it was a great event for what it was. Not perfect - lots of room to improve I bet, but a fantastic time for a huge majority of the crowd that atteneded.

Most people that were there had fun. Hey I've been to 3 Olympic games, seen 2 SC wins, Seen grey cup wins, been to a World Cup, etc. Just that this event didn't thrill me at all but then I'm not a fan at all of the sport. it would be like going to a cricket match and everybody is cheering and I'm going, um, what? Which was pretty much what I was thinking. Almost fell asleep watching on Friday.

I don't know the first thing about Redbull event and tbh everybody that was there on Friday was losing interest. People were taking a quick look and coming and going its really the crowd that creates the buzz for people that like crowds and Saturday at least had that.

Glad people had fun and I'm fine with the city hosting it again. it cost next to nothing for the City to have it and they would have easily made money on it.

Myself I shouldn't have gone for a few hours on Friday. I find my interest was kind of tapped out on Saturday as its all the same to me. I was just kind of saturated with it. Something I could do once but not apparently twice and retain any interest.

 

[ResilientBeast]

The only event I took part in was one of the parties on Jasper Ave on friday. Had some friends from the U of A paper there taking pictures said it was pretty cool.

 

[doulos]

Most people that were there had fun. Hey I've been to 3 Olympic games, seen 2 SC wins, Seen grey cup wins, been to a World Cup, etc. Just that this event didn't thrill me at all but then I'm not a fan at all of the sport. it would be like going to a cricket match and everybody is cheering and I'm going, um, what? Which was pretty much what I was thinking. Almost fell asleep watching on Friday.

I don't know the first thing about Redbull event and tbh everybody that was there on Friday was losing interest. People were taking a quick look and coming and going its really the crowd that creates the buzz for people that like crowds and Saturday at least had that.

Glad people had fun and I'm fine with the city hosting it again. it cost next to nothing for the City to have it and they would have easily made money on it.

Myself I shouldn't have gone for a few hours on Friday. I find my interest was kind of tapped out on Saturday as its all the same to me. I was just kind of saturated with it. Something I could do once but not apparently twice and retain any interest.

Fair enough. It reminds me of the Heritage Classic. I attended and sat in the obstructed viewing area - the view was crap. It was so disgustingly cold that it seemed insane to even be there. Etc etc.

Would have done it again in a heartbeat just for the experience of it all.

 

[NeverForget06]

I went to the event last night. Absolutely perfect conditions for an event like this. Did stick around and watch for a super long time, basically just saw the track and watched a couple of different races and got out of there. But the atmosphere was great. The big screens on Jasper reminded me of being at the 2010 olympics in Vancouver. Have never seen Jasper Ave so packed it was an absolute blast.

 

[harpoon]

Seems like the main thing at this event is taking selfies, hashtagging that you were there, and wondering what else to do because you can't see anything.

To be fair to the organizers of this event, that seems to be what qualifies as a good time for many people these days.

 

[Replacement*]

To be fair to the organizers of this event, that seems to be what qualifies as a good time for many people these days.

haha, how true. Even at hockey games..

The funny thing is they were even telling people to take selfies and hashtag the event. They were saying this repeatedly. Basically feeding what already seems ingrained behavior. So oddly pavlovian.

Can't quite picture why people need their mug attached to anything they do or attend. Do they forget where they've been? Need a visual record?

Anyway again a decent event for the city and that made money for SCC, the city, and surrounding hotels.

Its a real low budget attraction and imo a lot better investment than the Indy races here that cost several times more to put on and probably had similar exposure.

Really have to say the crowd was really well behaved. Nice family atmosphere. Looks like the event is going back to Quebec City though from what I read.

Wish we had a bobsled run here @ Louise McKinney. That could be a permanent attraction with anybody that wants to using it and annual events.

 

[awesomo]

Jasper Ave was insane last night, it was very very busy. At 9 the streets were filled, it was like Canada Day or something like that. Throughout the day saw the streets pretty packed.