Simple Session 2008 - Risto Kalmre

October 22, 2007 @ 10:09 AM by Robin Fenlon

The Simple Session in Estonia is a contest thats been going for years. It's always a place riders go nuts, new stuff get invented and everyone has a good time. This week Simple Session 2008 gets it's web unveiling, dates set and so on. Simple Session creator Risto Kalmre talk about the comp and why you should go.


Dave Mirra, Bas Keep, Mark Webb and Dave Osato enjoying the Simple Session.

What's the theory behind Simple Session?
The general idea is to offer riders and audience to have a good time. Simple as that.

I could say it's to have good 'big contest' elements mixed with laid back vibe. Maybe sounds a bit corny but it's almost like to take good elements from contest such as X-Games and good elements from contest as Backyard Jam and mix them together. Eliminating all the stress but still have it organized and all the shit flowing. So from one side we're doing this big media broadcast with 10 cameras and cranes and live scoring and all these things. But we're just doing it for the sake of audience in the venue and for riders themselves. To make it more interesting. We're not publishing it in a big tv station where we can sell expensive ads but we're streaming it live on the internet for free. And from the other side, even though it sounds as a big contest, we try to make it as relaxed as possible. Jam format, flexible time, like just a normal fun session. Being out here in Estonia we still cannot compete in prize money with big western contest but hopefully this is not the main motivation to come here anyway. We try to make everyone to have a good time here and minimum the hassle. We book riders hotels and have shuttles between the locations. Parties have been great and now we're also doing a film festival where we showcase some of the good bike and skate films. Just to give people here a better perspective that BMX is not only about these contests and such.

It's not only A-list pro contest as well. We also give local guys a chance to ride together with all the superstars they have seen in the magazines. We had a summer jam for Baltic locals to qualify for the winter contest. And the other thing people have been really happy about is that a day that after the contest we've been opening the park up for everyone to ride. So I think SImpel Session tries to be a dialed professional event but with down to earth attitude and for the sake of riders.

The contest is BMX and skateboard. When we started years ago it was just a practical choice. For one thing we were a group of people and some of us rode bikes and some skateboarded. And for other thing the scenes in Estonia were so small, so it made sense to include both events to make the contest bigger. Now some time has passed and we could probably pull the events off when only one of the disciplines would be represented. But we have come to like this concept of skate/bmx event. People have been getting along great and both sports feed from each other, making the contest stand out from todays trends. Also it's a chance to meet new people that you normally don't meet on a bike event and vice versa. We've been also happy to get the course design real dialed and favorite among bikers and skaters alike. This is something we're really stoked on and continue to experiment with. The result is a slightly unconventional course and it makes people to use their head and I think it pushes contest bike riding in new direction.

Other crotchet of the contest is that it takes place in winter-time. That might mean that the weather outside is not so tolerant but it also means that not much is going on everywhere else too. So Tallinn has become a place where riders and industry people meet and hang out enjoying the laid back vibe.

Simple Session has been running for a long time. How do you keep it fresh and popular year after year?
Yeah, we're coming to our 8th event now, and also there's been some smaller summer events. Like probably some other event organizers, almost every year I think this is gonna be the last for me. Because of all the normal contest organizing hassle.
But all the great response have been pushing us to come back, hehe. Also some undone things are a motivation.
Well, first of all we try to have some new challenges for ourselves every year. So we would not feel as repeating ourselves. Fortunately besides little things here and there, it does feel it has doing better and better each year. We also try to introduce something new each year, be it high air contest, live scores, internet broadcast, vert contest etc. We are building completely new course from scratch each year, not repeating any elements. It's been also growing to be a week long festival. There's a film program in theaters 3 days prior to event, there's 2-3 parties and free session day after the event. We also have some new ideas for this year. And in 2009 we're doing two Session events in a row in two cities/countries, Riga and Tallinn. It's gonna be huge.

The pro turnout continues to grow, how do you persuade riders to come to Estonia?
It's been going way easier lately cause people already know about the contest and wanna come themselves.
But generally it's sending a lot of emails and doing some phone calls. Ride UK, Dig and Document Magazine has been very kind enough to help us out with publishing a few ads. I think this has certainty helped to get the message through. The biggest help has been probably a word of mouth. Riders who have been here already tell their friends it's been awesome. Probably like with any other contest. We do have been getting a lot and nice coverage in magazines and videos. So thank for all these guys, I'm sure it's been helping us a lot. The party-scene of Tallinn is probably a mayor motivation for coming out too, hehe. It does get pretty wild. Also the audience in the contest tend to be very supportive and riders like that.

We don't have that big of a BMX business going on out here, so teams are probably not sending people out to represent. But then people are just coming from their personal interest, to experience a new place and event. We do have some things going on with Red Bull and Vans. So they help out to cover some guys costs. And there's a little distro company Mysticbmx.com here that is helping to cover a few overseas riders as well.

Who designs the course?
We designed the course ourselves until 2006. Then we hooked up with Nate Wessel last year and he designed the last course, also the course for our summer jam and for upcoming event. We even worked with him on a skatepark in Latvia. It's just a lot of stress off our shoulders because he has great ideas and understands both bikes and skateboarding. Getting the course right has been one of the most difficult part of the organizing for us. I do think we have succeed in some parts with our own design too but with Nate it's just way easier. He normally sends us couple of designs, we discuss some of them and it goes from there. We actually have the new course design ready already and are gonna publish it next week. Stay tuned for that. It's gonna be awesome. Our own crew are still building setting the course up though. They're doing a good job.

Which big names are coming for 2008?
It's a little bit early to drop specific names yet cause I just started to give people shout about the contest.
But I can already tell that a lot of famous peepz will be showing up. Povah has promised to come with his Etnies crew, big Twentybikes crew from France will be here, Proper Bikes team, Simple team, Sexton and Doyle from Kink, some US Shadow guys, Rob-O with is Fit posse, guys from Odyssey, Vans, Seventies, Red Bull, United. The list will go on.
I expect the riders lineup to be more insane than last year. At least for me. I think most of the guys from last year want to come back and so far it's been showing than many new faces are coming too. Also some people we've been trying to hunt down for some time now. Stay tuned and keep your eye on our website - http://www.session.ee

Why should everybody come to the 2008 Simple Session?
Because it's fun and you'll meet nice people from all over the place.
I also advice for people book their tickets as soon as possible. Especially for all the people in Germany and UK, Easyjet is cheap. And write me an email if you want to ride the contest.


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