Details about Action Sports Expo Asia

Last week, the producers of Surf Expo announced they were creating a brand new trade show for Asia that will take place April 13 to 15 next year in Singapore.

We caught up with Surf Expo Director Roy Turner, who was fresh off the plane from Singapore, to find out why they chose to launch the show there and what this means for brands doing or wanting to do business in Asia.

Why Singapore? Why not do it in China or elsewhere in Asia?

We have been working on this project for about a year and a half as we have been looking to expand, but didn’t want to force the market, especially since there’s been some crazy things with trade shows in the press. Everyone said you’ve got to go to China.

But after researching, we realized China is a difficult animal, even within its own borders. We realized if we did a trade show in China it would be exactly that -- a Chinese trade show. There’s nothing wrong with that, but we also researched if we picked a place outside of China, the Chinese would travel there, and less people would be willing to go to China. Hong Kong was our second choice and we considered Bali as well as it is the home office for Asia/Pacific for a lot of the industry companies, like Quiksilver and more.

When you look at the economy and where business is done, the Singapore government has been really smart. They have minimal taxation. They incentivize companies to do business there. Work visas and entry visas are not a problem. They are really smart and they all speak so many languages and you have all that and an island culture that embraces the sports we are marketing to, so you can’t go wrong. We approached the government and they have embraced us with open arms and are working hand in hand with us.

I’ve heard people call Singapore the fashion mecca of Asia. What’s it like there?

The Marina Bay Sands

I just got back from there and the retail that’s done there is phenomenal. I remember traveling to New York City ten years ago and everyone had shopping bags from Prada and Gucci on their shoulders and it’s like that in Singapore every day. And the other thing is it’s beautiful. They are really concerned with the environment and even though they have limited resources because they are an island, they preserve green space, there’s not once piece of paper on the ground and it’s a really clean country.

I visited the hotel that we are hosting it, and the Marina Bay Sands is one of top five architecturally designed hotels in the world. It kind of reminds me of the buildings in Dubai. There are three big towers and it looks like there is a giant skateboard on top. That skateboard looking structure is really an infinity swimming pool that runs the entire upstairs, and it’s bigger than a football field.

I remember a few years ago they built a giant wakeboard park in the country and that even though skateboarding was small, some distributors were working with the government to build skateparks there locally. How is action sports embraced there now?

What’s great is that their government is really big on public parks and public green spaces for residents. Recently, they have built some phenomemol skateboard parks and they have built a huge infrastructure. One park is called East Park and in that same park, they have a public kiteboard launch area, and a huge cable park for waterskis and wakeboards. It’s all owned by the government. I think that’s one of the reasons they are really supportive of us coming there. They have already built the infrastructure and now they are trying to get the kids to embrace some of what we are showing.

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