MTN DEW’s New Skateboarding Campaign With Pro Skaters Will ‘Unlock’ Off-Limits Spots Around U.S. For Skaters

Tuesday, June 21, has been celebrated as Go Skateboarding Day since 2004, a movement that encourages skaters around the world to get out on their boards and bring members of the sport together.

However, in many places in the world, including in the U.S., skateboarding is still frowned upon at best and illegal at worst—in fact, in 2007, a group of skaters observing Go Skateboarding Day in downtown Hot Springs, Arkansas, were arrested, with the video going viral on YouTube.

Skateboarding may have made its Olympic debut in 2021, affirming its status as a legitimate sport to millions of viewers who may have thought otherwise, and programs around the world are receiving unprecedented support and resources to help countries develop their next pro skaters and potential future Olympians.

However, accessing places to skate is still difficult in many cities—especially among street skaters, who often skate public features and film video parts on well-known landmarks rather than skate in sanctioned parks.

In its new summer skateboarding campaign, MTN DEWDEW
, which sponsors a pro skate team and is the named sponsor of the annual action sports competition Dew Tour, is trying to “unlock” some of those spots around the U.S. for skaters.

The campaign, Skateboarding Is Unstoppable, was announced Tuesday and will lead up to Summer Dew Tour at Lauridsen Skatepark in Des Moines, Iowa, on July 29–30. Lauridsen, now the largest skatepark in the U.S., will host Dew Tour for the second year in a row and will be free for spectators.

Beginning in July prior to Dew Tour, the tour will hit four spots across the U.S. that represent hometowns of athletes on MTN DEW’s pro roster: Burlington, Vermont, with Chris Colbourn; Inglewood, California, with Theotis Beasley; Albuquerque, New Mexico, with Mariah Duran; and Kansas City, Missouri, with Sean Malto.

Each spot will “unlock” skate spots for locals that are otherwise off-limits. Content creators and locals will also be filmed at each spot along the “Unlock the Spot” tour and interviewed about what inspires them to skate, culminating in a Skateboarding Is Unstoppable video edit.

Social media footage will be shared on Dew Tour and MTN Dew’s channels along the way, and information about when the tour will be coming to each location can be found on dewtour.com.

Other events and competitions have attempted to open up otherwise off-limits spots to local skaters. In October 2021, the first ever Streetstyle Open was held in Des Moines in partnership with Red Bull, working with local government to allow skaters to compete at spots such as the Iowa State Capitol People’s Plaza and Railroad Park.

The skateboarding community is a microcosm of the larger population in the U.S. Rather than criminalize skateboarding, local governments around the country should be working with their recreational organizations and other advocates to find ways for skaters to safely enjoy the public features of their towns and cities.

It’s one of the few sports that can be done almost anywhere and requires very little equipment—and the sense of community it fosters can be as important to those who get involved as the physical activity.

When Des Moines hosted Dew Tour and then, a few months later, the Streetstyle Open, there were “a lot of politics involved to show people all the positive aspects of skateboarding,” Skate DSM president Norm Sterzenbach told me at the time. Acknowledging that “it gets a bad rap, particularly among business owners who have had to kick kids out of their facilities,” by working together with the local chamber of commerce and the board of supervisors, Skate DSM was able to show local business leaders the positive social (and economic) impact skateboarding events in the city would bring.

Other cities can use Des Moines as a blueprint for how to make skateboarding more accessible—and soon, they’ll have more examples in Burlington, Inglewood, Albuquerque and Kansas City.

Duran, who grew up skating with her brothers in Albuquerque, was among the first-ever group of athletes to compete in skateboarding at the Tokyo Olympics. But as a street skater, filming local spots is still a major part of her identity.

“I’ll never stop learning new tricks and filming in the streets with my friends,” Duran said. “It truly brings me joy, and I can’t wait to unlock an off-limits area in Albuquerque to skate with my childhood friends and the ever-growing skate community at home.”

“Even though it’s now an Olympic sport, skateboarding is still banned in most public areas, and many prominent skate spots are off-limits,” said Matthew Nielsten, senior director of marketing at MTN DEW. “Skateboarding Is Unstoppable was designed to celebrate what makes the sport special to more than 9 million active skateboarders in the U.S. and find ways to make it more accessible.”