May 30th 2025
The night will go down in infamy as one of the biggest and best induction ceremonies to date! We have over 700 people show up to welcome the Class of 2025. You could feel the love in the air, as skaters from all over the the place gathered together to honor the new inductees and share some love and celebrate with the skateboarding community. We are truly blessed with your presence and support for the Skateboarding Hall of Fame.
The unofficial pre event kicked the day off for many at the Vans Huntington Beach Skatepark 6 miles down the road from Vans HQ. Luminaries included Hosoi, Lance Mountain, Chris Strople, Eric Nash, Brad Bowman, Pat Ngoho, Bennet Harada, Lester Kasai, Freddie De Sota, and many more. Some skated and some were just hanging out. At 4 o’clock many of us had to get over to Vans to help out with setup kinda stuff.
Upon arrival things look pretty well in hand and people started showing up at the gate eager to get checked in by 4:45. The gates opened promptly at 5pm and the people flooded in quick. Taco Guy, Best Pizza, Newport Rib Co., and Raising Canes were being served as the Nine Club was doing interviews for the SKTstream live feed (Caballero, Agah, Jamie Reyes, Barbier were the guests, with a surprise fireball by Jeremy Klien). Adrian Demain, Bryce Wettstein, and Edie Robertson, aka The Sidewalk Surfers, played some tunes on stage. The backbone of skateboarding industry was in the house! It was a skateboarder Utopia…
7pm and it was GO time. Todd Huber, Jim Fitzpatrick, and Steve Van Doren set the stage and gave thanks to all involved in making the event happen, especially to Laura Thornhill for her stellar event production and the Vans crew for handling the crowds. Then they introduced the MC’s, Chris Pastras, Don Brown and Christian Hosoi. The next 3 hours was a testament to the power and magic we have all felt from skateboarding. All the inductees brought something special to the skateboarding world. Even better, the bonds we share, even though we don’t all know each other, brought us to tears and had us laughing as one collective body. I hope the feeling was felt via the live stream because in the room is was heart felt.
Until next year! …
…uh wait. Don’t wait until next year. Come visit the Skateboarding Hall of Fame and Museum, open all year in Simi Valley CA.