Behind the Northwest Open with Sam Goldberg-Jaffe

As we enter the last quarter of the year, the Pacific Northwest is reminded of the cold, wet season lying ahead. With the looming season coming, skaters and the companies are making the last bit count. Just over a month ago, Rockstar Energy held a skate contest in Portland, Oregon; the whole event was live streamed and brought over a plethora of pros and ams competing. On top of that, Adidas Skateboarding came through for a demo at the (now gone) DIY on SE 7th and Sandy, and Emile Laurent turned pro for Polar Skate Co. And now, Tactics Boardshop just ended their third annual Northwest Open. Safe to say it’s been an exciting closeout to the summer in Portland.

I stopped by Director Park on the corner of SW Yamhill and Park for day two of Northwest Open for their pro/am jam. Booths from sponsors surrounded the park with a long flatbar going down SW Park. On the other side, on SW 9th, were quarter pipes of varying sizes and a kicker launching skaters over the planter. On the park itself was a bump to ledge with a banked side, two hubbas down the five, and an outledge across the four stair.

I walked past Red Bull’s mobile DJ booth by the fountain and saw skaters already throwing tricks down the hubba as more arrived. The four hour event was MC’d by Shane Heyl and Sam Goldberg-Jaffe, the skate marketing manager and skate team manager for Tactics. Cash was given out to those who landed tricks. I called Sam and asked him a few questions about the jam.

How would you say this year’s Northwest Open was different from the previous one?

We switched it a lot this year. We’ve done the previous two events only up at Seek Skate Camp. This year we were bouncing around different ideas where we wanted to have it half in Portland and half at Seek. We actually found out the Rockstar Open was happening the same weekend we planned our event so we just kind of used that as a push to move it to September and try something new. It's definitely different to permit a spot in Portland and build features there and have to deal with the general public and all the good things and bad things that come with that.

Yeah, I was wondering why you decided to do some events outside of Seek Skate Camp.

We wanted to make the event a little more accessible. If you’re in downtown Portland and you’re walking around and you don’t even skateboard, you could see the event and it could spark some interest in skateboarding and show that skateboarding in cities is a positive thing, not a negative thing. Seek’s an hour away and it’s the coolest place on Earth; it’s a dream skatepark in the middle of the woods. We wanted to still provide free public access to Seek Camp but also have an opportunity for people to come to the event and not have to travel an hour. Also, Seek Skate Camp is catered towards transition skating. We wanted to have a street skating element to our event. Transition skating is incredibly popular in the Pacific Northwest but street skating is too. I think there’s an equal amount of both. Our team as well is pretty heavily focused on street skating.

How did you choose Director Park as the spot?

We ended up on Director Park because it’s actually owned by Portland Downtown Clean and Safe which is a group that works really hard on revitalizing downtown and getting mental health resources and opportunities to people living on the streets. They were really eager to work with us on this event. They’d already done some skate events with other local organizations. Fam Jam was one of them over the summer. We connected with them and it was a really easy process.

We had three or four different spots we were targeting for the event. One of them being Esplanade and one being Park Blocks. We tried all three at once just to see what would stick and we got shut down on the other two. But it turned out to be great because Director Park was a great place to have the event. We wanted it to be at a real street spot where people skate in Portland.

How long would you say the process for getting Director Park permitted was?

Getting the park permitted was a pretty quick process because they were onboard. It just required some paperwork. We also permitted the two streets on either side of the park and that was a little more challenging to work with PBOT. I’d say realistically a month to get it all figured out.

I was there at Director Park, and I didn’t expect to see Shane Heyl there. How did he get involved?

One of our designers, Scotty Copalman, and Shane grew up together; they’ve been friends since they were ten years old. About a year ago, we approached Shane about doing a Shake Junt collab in the spring, and it was a really fun time. We had a really good time filming the edit for the whole week at Courts, and he’s the realest guy there is. He is a skate rat through and through and he thrives off the energy around him and brings the hype. We thought we might as well shoot our shot and we asked him to announce our event, and he agreed.

On his Instagram, I see that he’s been posting some Portland clips. Did he move up here or is he just visiting for a long time?

He still lives in LA. He just likes to visit. He’s been here, I think, three times in the last year skating and visiting friends.

Are you already planning for next year?

When an event comes to a close, I think it’s natural to start talking about the next year. Conceptually, we are planning ahead and getting ready but we’re gonna take a few months off before we really get back into that.

Thank you to all the sponsors who supported Northwest Open. Thank you to Tactics, Cons and Seek Skate Camp for hosting, Shane Heyl for announcing, and especially Sam and everyone else involved with organizing the event. Enjoy those months off!

Behind the Northwest Open with Sam Goldberg-Jaffe

Grindline Skateparks

Krooked’s IG Clips from the NW