If you hang out at a skatepark, or at a curb spot, there’s always some old-times youngster ready to tell you stories from a distant past when skateboarding was something else. They’ll tell you about that one time the Blind/Girl/New Deal team stopped by their parking lot and did a demo, and you won’t believe what Vallely/Carroll/Brian Wenning/Guy Mariano—or insert any other name from the era—pulled off on that picnic table they found at the park.
And keep in mind: back then there were no cell phones or Internet.
Because every single time, they’ll end the story with: “There were no cell phones or Internet”—and no one knows why.
Recently, watching the Hockey FA Tour IV video—especially the first minute—I found myself thinking: what the hell happened to board brand demo tours? Where did they go?
Because here you’ve got a team stacked with big names in skateboarding, and they look like they’re having the time of their lives at a totally improvised spot, with a hyped-up crowd.
For sure, Jason Dill—watching or editing the footage—must have purposely slipped in references to the old SMA Hobo Tour, or maybe he was just thinking of the 90s tours, back when his haircut was a little less “Strange Uncle.”
That was the time when you’d load up a van with the whole team and cross the good old USA, stopping in forgotten towns and skating whatever you could find.
The skateshop covered gas and lodging (if you were lucky), and if you were even luckier, someone scored a couple beers and something to smoke—and maybe, just maybe, the pro add to the legend by making out with the slightly goth shopgirl you’d been crushing on but never confessed to.
Swap cigarettes with vape pens and goth girls with hyped-up kids, and the concept’s the same (hey, modern times).
Simpler days? Less profitable contracts? The “good ol’ days”? Call it whatever you want—the point remains: even now, with TikTok feeds teaching you skateboarding culture, all it really comes down to is this: a skateboard, people who know how to ride it, and people who appreciate that.
That skateboarding isn’t in its best economic moment is obvious. Sure, demo tours still exist—but mostly from shoe brands. And the demo part is marginal: it’s mainly a way to get the team together, hit up rich spots regions to film content, and squeeze in a demo at the main city’s skatepark. Honestly? The demo is always the part I skip.
But a board brand doing a proper demo tour in the U.S.? How long has it been? Why don’t board demo tours happen anymore?
It’s pretty clear: profit margins for a board company are laughable, so spending time and money to skate in front of 100 kids in the middle of nowhere isn’t exactly financially smart. Way better to sync the team’s schedules and use the same resources to film a video project.
Maybe it was always like that, even back then—but they still did it. It defined a brand’s identity, and the memories it left with kids were unforgettable.
The real question is: will kids ever get as hyped as in the Girl/Firm/Chocolate 1994 tour on 411VM?
Were there ever maniacs like in the Toy Machine ‘94 tour again?
Did Tum Yeto ever have a lineup as stacked as on the Canada Tour ‘98?
We don’t know. What we do know is that somebody out there saw those demos live—and maybe still has the torn-up t-shirt they snatched from their buddy after Tony Silva threw it into the crowd. (And hey—what about that Switch FS flip Satva Leung pulled on the improvised bump-to-bump outside the skateshop?)
Will kids ever be as stoked as they were for Chad Muska on the Circa tour?
Or, better yet, like teenage girls during Sean Malto’s era?
That first minute of the Hockey video showed me something: if you bring people who can truly skate to the worst possible spot, they’ll probably still have fun and bust out tricks that hype the kids up. And maybe, the next day, those kids will hit up the local skateshop to buy a Hockey deck (as if they don’t already), instead of ordering it off that gigantic website everyone uses to avoid dealing with the shop owner—yeah, social anxiety sucks—even though he’s the one who just set up that killer demo with Elijah Berle on fire, and Diego Todd, who honestly feels like the most exciting thing in skateboarding in 2025.
I think it’s time board companies start grinding miles again, improvising demos outside those gigantic skateparks with security guards. Skateboarding needs to get back to being less structured, so everyday skaters can break out of their antisocial bubble, step away from their perfect skatepark, and return to that random useless spot in their hometown.
Nowadays, everyone skates—but only a few stick with it. And I’d say we should focus on those few, because they’ll still be buying boards ten years from now. The market’s more cyclical than ever.
Skateboarding is at a crossroads—economic and social. It’s a socially accepted sport now, with all the contradictions that brings. But its essence is the same: it’s exciting, it’s raw, and it can still move people with its simplicity.
Bring skateboarding back to the streets, and to the road. Somewhere in Minnesota or Germany, there’s a kid who, twenty years from now, will still get chills remembering when he split a blue Slurpee with Aidan Mackey while chatting for a bit.
It might be fun. It might be inspiring. It might … Coulda, shoulda, woulda… But one thing’s for sure: no one will ever have as much fun as the crazy crew on those old Hook Ups tours.
It’s time for goth girls to chase the new unknown AM—even if they’ll secretly keep loving Heath Kirchart forever.
And maybe this whole rant only exists as an excuse to rewatch old tour videos.
– S
The Hook Ups tour was the best one