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Liverpool HUB Festival 2004 – an SK8 Of The Art Event

Urban Events specialists, the Special Events Team at Liverpool Culture Company, staged their highly successful HUB 2004 festival at Liverpool’s Pier Head. The high energy event saw over 12,000 people participate and enjoy two days of vibrant fun, action and urban life, art, sport and music - in the largest free festival of its type in the UK.

HUB 2004 builds on 2003’s one-day launch event. This year, the Culture Company changed the venue and designed and added new elements, such as the SK8 Park. This allowed young people of all ages and abilities to showcase their skills and talents at boarding, BMX riding and in-line-skating. It proved one of the festival’s overall most popular elements, packed from start to finish each day, and culminating in the fiercely contended SK8 under-18s competition won by Peter Dearden (Inline), Paul Ryan (BMX), and Joseph McGuffog (SK8).

Daring demos from top industry extreme sports professionals like Team Extreme and 2004 World BMX Champion Simon Tabron also generated intense interest, combining acrobatics and elegance in an all-action adrenalised rush of energy and excellence. The non-stop host of international and local artists appearing onstage included Fingathing, Youngun, Multi Purpose Chemical, System D Analyst, The Shapeshifters, DJ Quinzola, Blade featuring First Rate & Respect and many more.

Break-dancing demos were coordinated by Rock Steady Crew who supplied their top B-Boys for the occasion. They worked throughout the day in conjunction with local DJ CHNK during the band changeovers, to ensure the seamless stream of entertainment could be enjoyed by all.

Fifty-four graffiti artists from around the world added colour, vitality and their own individual masterworks to a specially built graffiti wall surrounding the Pier Head site - which had just been declared a ‘World Heritage’ site. By the end of the first day, the once white ply graf wall was bursting with life and expression. Totalling 250 metres, the end result was among the longest pieces of continuous graffiti art in Europe.

They took several radically different steps this year. Realising the need for a large element of active audience participation and a fast moving schedule to kept attention spans stoked and positive energy flowing, The Events Team also realised the importance of attracting all types of people of all ages, not just excitement driven young urban warriors.

Thinking completely laterally on the promotions front, the vibe on HUB 2004 was spread via a series of underground networks relevant to each area – via word-of-mouth, text message and flier. They enlisted the help of a local graf artist, Stok, one of the gurus of the genre, who tapped into his own network of contacts. His stature and respect encouraged a diverse selection of artists to come to Liverpool to share their own unique live art with the city. The Culture Company event team also worked with many of Liverpool’s prolific indie record labels to get word around, including Yo-Shot Promotions who helped supply many of the unsigned musical talent on the bill.

Building on last year’s experience, the Special Events Team enlisted the help of various top production companies to ensure HUB 2004 ran like clockwork. Suppliers included Shadow Lighting, Total Show Solutions and 5-D.

Team Extreme built the SK8 Park and also supplied their own vert ramp for demos. A bass-tastic Function One Resolution 5 PA was supplied for the stage by Manchester-based dance music specialist, Audile. The saddle-span stage roof came from Roustabout, with Steeldeck flooring supplied by 8 by 4 and the large quantities of scaffolding by SGB. SGB also supplied the park barriers, and the front of stage barrier came from Event Solutions. Search supplied toilets and portacabins, and generators came from locally based A- Plant.

Kirstie Blakeman from the Event Team sums up: “Competing for Capital of Culture status in 2003 encouraged us to look at the range of events the city was staging. This in turn highlighted that one area in particular needing attention was youth culture.

“After the first event in 2003, feedback enabled us to determine which areas to expand, resulting in this year’s provision of a street course and amateur competition for the SK8 arena. The event was extended over two days and the street art more than doubled. The amateur competition attracted both local kids and others from as far afield as Newcastle and Bristol for the event.

“The North West has a massive history of producing world renowned sportsmen and women. HUB is aiming to change the perception of youth culture and highlight the quality and interest there is in the music, sport and art associated with this underground network.

“We were honoured to have world champion sk8ers and BMXers at the event. Simon Tabron (a local lad from Southport) had just won the 2004 World BMX Championships in Cologne the weekend before.

“It was incredible to see traditionally moody teenagers with smiling faces enjoying the event and having a laugh. HUB will only grow and evolve as we approach 2008 – I can’t wait!”

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Liverpool HUB Festival 2004 – an SK8 Of The Art Event

8th July 2004

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