Awesome Calgary, Alberta-based artist Nathan Bishop, who makes custom skateboard deck grip tape art, is back with his new initiative, which he partnered with Haley Herrington for, entitled Longboarding for Peace. Concrete Wave Magazinerecently had this to say about his latest venture: “Nathan Custom Bishop has created a masterpiece that really gives life to the ideas of the Longboarding for Peace movement. There is no doubt that his grip tape art is remarkable! Nathan was approached by Concrete Wave magazine to create one of his designs on a longboard for Longboarding for Peace.

I first discovered marketing guru Seth Godin in the spring of 1999. I was working at Warwick Publishing trying to sell advertising for a wine magazine. For those who can remember, the late ’90s were pretty heady days. The Internet had gone bananas and there was a sense of infallibility in the air. Looking back, it’s hard to believe that AOL merging with Time Warner would end in disaster. Then again, for a lot of people, the idea of pets.com losing $300 million in investor capital in just over two years seemed ridiculous. But that is exactly what happened.

I’ve been on the job at the International Association of Skateboard Companies (IASC) for a little more than two years now. The question I get over and over again after telling people that I’m the executive director of the nonprofit trade association for the skateboard industry is, “Oh, so what do you guys do?” IASC exists to promote skateboarding, increase participation, educate and save our members money. We’ve got some great programs and initiatives in place to accomplish our goals. We’ve even managed to break them down into hashtags so we can communicate our message more clearly.

As an “industry watcher and commentator,” I found last fall’s Agenda show particularly interesting — mostly because the feedback that I heard out of it was so incredibly un-interesting … The one thing that I did hear — and I actually heard it quite a few times, from multiple sources — was in regards to the trade-show floor plan itself. From what I’ve heard, the floor plan, generally speaking, had all of the “street” brands on one side of the trade show and all of the “others” (meaning, the “longboard” brands, the “slalom” brands, the “cruiser” brands and the rest of the brands that defy labels or categorization, but definitely aren’t “street brands”) at the opposite end of the show

It all began one night in 2012 at the Soho Beach House hotel in Miami Beach, Fla. I was at a gathering for a friend’s engagement when I overheard Joner Strauss talking with a bunch of our mutual friends about his most recent project. I initially tuned out the conversation because I assumed he was talking about another Board-Up Wakeboarding event, which I had attended in the past. But a particular word drew my attention back: “longboarding.” Hearing how passionate Joner was about longboarding made me even more intrigued.

We wanted to give you just a small taste of the ISPO tradeshow in Munich, Germany. To say this show is massive is a colossal understatement. Imagine 14 Surf Expos or Agendas all in one! It is hours upon hours of walking, discovering every conceivable type of sporting goods. The action sports pavilion attracted an enormous amount of people. Concrete Wave worked in conjunction with 40inch Longboard Magazin to produce the Longboard Embassy. More than 60 brands were gathered in their own special area. Everyone agreed it was a great experience, and well worth the money and time. Munich is a very easy city to navigate. Europe is not exactly cheap, but if you can get creative with accommodations and food, it is manageable. We plan on being there next year. If you’re a longboard brand, you should definitely think about coming!