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Jojo Jacobi - Interview

1. How did you start your adventure with rollerblading events? The first Winterclash was the beginning?

I started a couple of years before the first Winterclash. I was organizing the “Real street DD” for a couple of years in a row and also started with smaller skatepark events in my hometown Dresden.
The Winterclash idea came up when I felt like I want to organize something a little bigger outside my hometown.  After the success of the first Winterclash everything just kept on going from this point.

2. The huge responsibility and lots of stuff to take care during such big event won't let you to compete by yourself, do you regret it?

Definitely no problem with that! I still enjoy competing in events now and then, but the whole “behind the scenes” thing and making things happen became more fun for me and there’s absolutely no problem with not competing. And I don’t feel I could compete on this level anyway ;)

3. In your opinion how would the perfect contest looked like?

I´m not sure if the picture of a perfect contest exists in my mind. Expectation and imagination are growing with every event and I didn’t even come close to a point yet where I felt like I could imagine how a perfect event would look like. This year I work much much closer with my event partner Robert Winkler and since he is seeing things from an outsider point of view I learned a lot about how an event could look like and in which direction we even want to take the Winterclash.
So I can’t really answer this question I fear.  Just the most important part for a perfect contest is the feeling! If the people feel good and welcome at an event then you are in a good position. But until you get to this point it takes some time to find out about the factors which are making people feel good at competitions!

4. Tell us sth about the last year experience, you managed to transfer Winterclash in two days from one country to another? How did you do that???!

I guess it’s a matter of functioning. If I look back it seems like I didn’t thought much in the moment when it happened. The only thing coming to my mind was how to still make it happen. And obviously the only thing you can do is moving it somewhere else. Thanks to the whole Rollerblading community the news was spread all over and within a few hours everybody was already on the way to Eindhoven. I´m just really lucky I had the support from my team, the Area 51 Skatepark, the Dutch Skaters and the whole community. As long as you find this “don’t let the emotions come up” button in your head, just push it really hard and turn yourself into the functioning mode. That’s the key to success in such situations I really think! 

5. In 2008 I had a chance to visit Summerclash 2008, it was soooo good event, why the idea was dropped in 2009?

After the little accident at the Winterclash we didn’t feel like we would be able to realize a good Summerclash in such a short period. But the Summerclash and it will be back soon! Summerclash is the future, that’s what I can already tell you ;)

6. Right now Winterclash is considered as the biggest event in the world. Have you ever imagined that your project will take over such contests like Hoedown or Bittercold? What had the biggest influence in developing Winterclash?

When I started with the Winterclash I never had the intentions to make it the biggest event in Rollerblading. This just happened over the years. I really never expected it in the beginning and since I was a 100% grom, fan, groupie, however you wanna call it, it was a big thing for me to be able to compare the Winterclash with the biggest events in Rollerblading.

The biggest influence… I´m not really sure. Probably that I never stopped believing in this vision and that it’s hard to satisfy myself. So every year my expectations were growing and so was my motivation to step forward. But the most important factor for developing the event in the future is that Robert (my partner) and I just moved together in an office. Working that close with him made me realize how much potential this event really has. It’s kind of weird, because it’s the 6th Winterclash coming up but I totally feel we are at the very beginning of our plans and visions. This is just the start and I can’t wait to see what’s possible…..

7. This year was full of different kinds of events - street, park etc. You probably took part in most of them. Which ones are worth to check out in the next year?

The best event I’ve visited this year was the FISE in Montpellier. This huge extreme sports festival in southern France is the place to be and great times are 100% guaranteed! Next to that I had super fun at the Baltic Games in Poland because it’s just much more than just a competition. Loads of parties, the beach, the people…  Same goes for the Barcelona Extreme Sports Festival. So you see I enjoy events with all kinds of sports and activities. I guess it’s because it never gets boring!
As for core scene events you should def check out the Zero One Six Competitions in Eskilstuna / Sweden, the Never Winter Jam, Chaz invitational and for sure the Scandinavian Realstreet Finales in Copenhagen / Denmark!!! These are the ones which stick out the most.

8. Will you come to Never Winter jam 2010 and Baltic games 2010?
I will try my very best for sure! I enjoyed both events in 2009 so I seriously hope I will be able to come back. Especially staying for the whole Rollfest would be fun!

9. Winterclash 2010 is being prepared from the basis - including building a park only for this occasion. Also it still remains the core rollerblading event, which distinguishes it completely from such events like Fise. How long does it take to prepare WC2010 and how many people are behind it?

That’s what we try to realize. Making it bigger and open for the public, but also keeping the spirit of the biggest core scene event in Rollerblading. We started way too late again so this makes around 6-7 month of preparing. Actually it’s a little less since it took us a while to really get 100% into it and work fulltime for it. Everything is organized by Robert (who is also in charge of the entire graphic and design work) and me and we get support from a girl called Nicole who is in charge of the media and public relation stuff. This is for preparing the event. At the event itself there are much more people involved and we got a great team of ramp builders, judges, entry stuff, tradeshow manager, coordinators, registration and judging administration, bar staff, catering and so on…
At this point I want to thank everybody who ever helped the event in some way. We are looking forward to work with you again in just a few weeks!

10. Is Winterclash/Summerclash your only aim? What would you say about organizing a Street event of this scale?

Right now the only thing in our mind is the Winterclash. That’s what the focus is on. But there are plans for a biiiig Summerclash as well as some other projects. A legal and huge street event is also something I would like to do one day. So yeah, if we don’t lose the power and motivation you can expect a lot of stuff coming in the next months and years!