Hey Mirek, good as always to talk with you — though in person is more fun! Judging from all the promotion and sessions you guys have been having it seems like you’re really busy. From your POV, how’s everything going for Hedonskate?
Glad to hear that you have fun with me in person! As for Hedonskate.com, we are doing really really well. Besides the fact that sales goes down a bit (as far as I know not only for us but whole industry as well) we are all GOOD here. After big problems with our landlord we finally settled down in our new location in downtown Katowice and for sure nobody will kick us out. Moreover, we received HUGE skateplaza from our city government which allow us to skate anytime we want. It’s also a place where we can see a bunch of new bladers and the old school players are coming to blade with us from time to time. So life is going well for Hedonskate right now… plus we have ONE skater of the year on board.
Where did the idea to expand into Germany come from?
The idea for going to Germany came from the fact that Leo from Ignition decided to close the shop.
Before that we never thought about doing something bigger out there because Leo was doing such a good job. We have an active balder, Dirk Oealman,
on board right now so we want to do something for blading in that part of Europe. There is huge potentianl out there and with my 10 years experience in our industry I see a green light for us.
On a similar note, last year (I think!) awesome-sauce blade shop and German institution Ignition closed down. That after moving to Berlin and pushing even harder to do big things for blading. I know you guys had a rivalry — Green is better — but what is it like to see a fellow blade shop of their caliber bow out?
From one side it’s pretty sad because a market as huge as Germany/Austria creates a lot of opportunities. From the other side it’s also a hard market because of another very good, HUGE shop (the biggest in EU): GrindHouse.De.
I see it completely differently, I don’t want to fight with anybody. We just want to do our stuff and I hope we find people who will follow us. I truly believe that because our main slogan (before ‘green is better’) was ‘support supporters.’ So we simply support the industry and the industry supports us. All our crew are active bladers, so who knows better what to do for ourselves? That’s what I believe in, and all in all it’s taken us in a good direction. What do you think ?
As for Ignition and ‘Green is Better,’ when I was asked by Luca (our main designer) to choose the color way of our shop, we both decided to go green/white (other shops have other colors). You see, we did not want to fight with them, we just chose a color combo that was “free” and somehow fits to our lifestyle and philosophy of life.
After that we believed more and more in ourselves, so we started promoting as ‘Green is Better,’ which means that the green shop is better than others. Simply like that, and now what? We have green shop on market!?
Moreover, I used to work for Ignition… two years before I moved to Katowice and opened Hedonskate.com. And even after that we were cooperating together with issues like tours, importing products, etc.
No hate just love. 🙂 Love the Bladers!
