Skate and Surf comes and goes without a hitch
'It was a very well-run event with absolutely minimal problems'
The Skate and Surf Festival made a successful return to the city where it began over the weekend.
Approximately 3,500 people attended the festival by police estimates, according to Asbury Park Police Deputy Chief Anthony Salerno.
“It was a peaceful, well-behaved gathering,” Salerno said. “The promoter had plenty of security and law enforcement to assist the public with safety and traffic flow.”
Skate and Surf Fest got its start in Asbury Park in 2001 and later grew into the Bamboozle Festival managed by national concert promoter LiveNation and held at Giants Stadium. Promoters brought Bamboozle back to Asbury Park in 2012 but announced shortly after the festival they would not bring it back the following year.
Festival promoter and founder John D’Esposito said it was “special” to have the event successfully return to the city.
[Click here to see photos from Sunday’s events.]
“What we thought would happen here, happened,” he said. “There were incredible hardcore and punk rock bands that related to the crowd and it proves that the young, pop [music] doesn’t work here.”
Over 70 bands played on five stages set up in Bradley Park and Ocean Avenue over the two days the festival ran, a small skateboard ramp was set up in between the stages where skaters performed tricks for onlookers. Owners of Kim Marie’s Eat and Drink Away ran a beer garden in the southwest corner of the park, the Windmill restaurant sold concessions, and artists, record companies, and other merchants set up tents to sell items to the public.
After a heavy rain storm rolled through the region Friday before the festival, scattered clouds floated overhead and temperatures stayed in the low sixties for the rest of the weekend.
Vendor and artist Rocco Maraglia, 23, set up a tent and sold his prints at last year’s festival held in Great Adventure, and said this year’s event in Asbury Park met his expectations. He sold prints of his art to festival-goers along with T-shirts and other items.
“We’re doing fine,” he said. “I’m happy with everything and I’m getting great feedback from people.”
Morgan Falkowski, 18, who came to see the band Backyard Superheroes, said it was her first time visiting Asbury Park.
“I like [the city] a lot so far,” she said. “I like that it is a smaller city and there isn’t too much going on but it is still fun to be here.”
Alycia Wolf, 25, and her friend Lara Bonanni, 26, were critical of the festival layout. Four stages, two each side-by-side, ran along the northern portion of the park with one larger main stage set up in between the Berkeley Hotel and the north pavilion on Ocean Avenue.
“I think maybe the stages should have been spread apart more,” Wolf said.
“They should have spread us out more [in the beer garden area] too, I feel like cattle in here,” said Bonanni, who also said she had hoped there would be re-entry to the fest, similar to Banboozle, so that the two could have left to eat on the boardwalk.
Boardwalk businesses were not heavily impacted by the crowd.
“It brought a lot less people than I expected,” said Jaime Williamson, manager at boardwalk retail clothing store Style Rocket. “I was overstaffed and had to cut people. Bamboozle brought an older crowd who had money, but this was just like a regular weekend.”
Michael Astuto, a security guard at the Wonderbar, located just across the street from the festival grounds, said there was a slight uptick in business on Saturday from parents who brought their children to the festival, but the general scene at the Wonderbar scene was a typical weekend crowd.
Three people were arrested on for disorderly persons violations and released on summonses, and only two residents called in with noise complaints complaints because they “did not care for the genre of music,” Salerno said. No major offenses occurred.
“It was a very well-run event with absolutely minimal problems,” Salerno said, “we hope they come back to Asbury Park — we loved having them.”
The concert series will be back next year if the city will have it, D’Esposito said, and has the potential to grow into a festival to rival Bamboozle within three years.
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