Cons Presents the 3rd Annual Tactics Northwest Open

Film: Tim McCoy, Isaiah Boughn, Cal Aamodt Edit: Tim McCoy

The Northwest Open has quickly become a staple event, circled on every Pacific Northwest Skater’s summer calendar. With the long rainy winter ahead, the NWO is the perfect weekend for skaters from Seattle, Boise, Bend, Eugene, Southern California, and beyond, to make the pilgrimage to Portland. Skate, party, and enjoy some fleeting sun with 2,000 + skaters before that crappy weather rolls in.

For the Tactics third annual Northwest Open presented by Converse Cons, we switched up the format to keep things interesting. We added a contest at Downtown Portland’s Director Park, and an art show at the One Grand Gallery on East Burnside to the mix. Don’t worry, we still opened up Seek Skate Camp on Sunday for a community day filled with skate jams, and a youth contest.

The first ever NWO art show kicked off on Friday night at the One Grand Gallery, featuring work by Mike Gigliotti, Scotty Copalman, Charlie Salas-Humara, James Alby, and Jesse Kamerzell. Mike designed this year’s event poster, and Portland was excited to meet the man behind so many sick Baker, Deathwish, Vans, and DLX graphics.

Saturday at Director Park went off! Local ramp builder Ben Mohr and his crew had 24 hours to construct the hubbas, manny pad, and other features that were incorporated into the existing plaza. By noon on Saturday, the course was good to go. The skaters and onlookers were frothing for some action. Pros, ams and local rippers destroyed the course for almost three hours, earning a piece of the $3500 in cash for tricks. After the dust settled, overall winners were crowned. Alex Lobasyuk and Kasci Woolf each took home a G for their efforts, and Sebo Walker snagged $800 for the Red Bull best trick, a nosegrind to nollie bs flip on the bump to shoe box. Saturday capped off with an early screening of Cons new video “Evergreen” at 10 Barrel Portland.

Sunday at Seek Skate Camp in Sandy, OR was full of the same NWO magic that has made this event so special in the past. Volcom Skate hosted a jam on the big wall that was reminiscent of the death match. We saw some intentional and unintentional doubles routines on the vert wall. Next, Dickies Skateboarding hosted the always popular pole jam JAM in the concrete jungle. You will have to watch the video above to see the destruction. To end a perfect weekend, Arbor and Protec hosted a youth skate contest in the concrete jungle. The level of skating was high! Highlights were a kickflip indy on the vert wall, and a crook to back 180 on the bike rack. The future looks bright for PNW skating.

We want to give a huge thank you to Converse Cons and all our other sponsors for their support of our vision. Thank you to our media partners; Low Card Mag, Adjacency Bias, and Bigfoot Mag. We can't wait to see what next year's Northwest Open brings.

Check out the photo recap below:

Photos: Noah Smith