die996
(Banned)
- 387
- Spain
Back in June 2011, I watched this video. As a big fan of the X-Games since the early 2000s, I could not miss the chance to have them come to my nearest city: Barcelona.
We did not have those sites where people can sign for whatever random thing they want the government or a business to do in 2011. Also, I was a 19-year-old boy with no money and no experience at all. I still decided to check out the forms to propose a X-Games event since they were publicly available.
I read the form in its entirety and they asked for reasonable information like proposed venues for all events, people to contact, past events and their repercussion, hotels and so on. It looked like a tall order but I have always been creative in a weird way. After a few minutes thinking about it I decided to choose the 1992 Olympic Games ring (those venues are right next to the Montjuich street circuit). The Palau St. Jordi (indoor arena) for FMX best trick and Big Air, the Picornell pools to get some of the coolest shots ever in halfpipe history, the outdoor flat area right outside the Palau St. Jordi for the park+street venue and the big Olympic Stadium for the biggest stuff like rallycross, FMX and speed&style. I remember investigating about the stadium and designing a RX course that would go in an out using the huge ground-level tunnels.
I knew about plenty of past events (the goddamn Olympic Games, World Aquatics Championships, etc) and, luckily, the rest of the data such as people to contact plus their telephone numbers and e-mails were publicly available (gotta check the good sites). Attendance of past events was probably the hardest thing to find out and I either outright lied or made some quick lazy calculations for some cases. I signed the proposal as the guy that ran the sports section of the Barcelona city hall and sent it. My plan was flawless, probably too perfect.
Months later, they announced the cities for the events. I lost my mind, huge joy. I did not know if it was my proposal or if the actual city hall had done something on their own and I did not care. For a few months, I was just happy X-Games Barcelona was happening at all. I could watch some of the best action sports athletes in the World live, maybe some Spanish TV network would show it live to the masses, so cool!
I do not even remember how I reacted when they announced the schedule and venues for X-Games Barcelona. I had done it, I had successfully organized an international sports event! It was not "similar to my proposal", it was my proposal. They followed it to a tee, they only changed one thing (endurocross got moved from Palau St. Jordi to the Olympic Stadium and the rallycross event would be only inside the stadium), they even decided that building a halfpipe over a diving pool just to get the gnarliest photos ever was a great idea. I had kept it secret since then (I was afraid of the legal issues) but, with everything announced, I just started telling friends, family and classmates about it.
One classmate told me to write to ESPN, ABC and the Barcelona city hall about what I had done and that I wanted to be part of the event (a couple of VIP passes and making it somewhat public would have been more than enough). I tried to contact them all in quite a few ways. I must have sent like 50 unique e-mails in like 3 days.,I explained my story, with even more detail including how I got the data for the repercussion and attendance figures, but to no avail. Nobody believed me, most never replied and those who did made it very clear that the only one responsible was the city hall, that it was all their idea. Maybe they did not want to admit it, they did not want to admit some stupid nobody had spent like 3 hours on his computer and had successfully tricked both sides in such a way.
In the end, the event was a bit of a failure. A combination of poor ticket sales (a lot of locals thought most top athletes would not come) and the weather helped killing the Barcelona event and even the whole X-Games The Expansion project was dead. I attended the Park+Street finals and the endurocross race at the Olympic Stadium.
All in all, I gotta admit my plan had two big problems:
· I did not realize that skaters and BMX riders would never be able to reach the heights needed to get the cool shots I had in my mind.
· I did not take screenshots, all the proof I had was an invalid link indicating that I had sent a proposal for X-Games The Expansion.
Now you know about it.
We did not have those sites where people can sign for whatever random thing they want the government or a business to do in 2011. Also, I was a 19-year-old boy with no money and no experience at all. I still decided to check out the forms to propose a X-Games event since they were publicly available.
I read the form in its entirety and they asked for reasonable information like proposed venues for all events, people to contact, past events and their repercussion, hotels and so on. It looked like a tall order but I have always been creative in a weird way. After a few minutes thinking about it I decided to choose the 1992 Olympic Games ring (those venues are right next to the Montjuich street circuit). The Palau St. Jordi (indoor arena) for FMX best trick and Big Air, the Picornell pools to get some of the coolest shots ever in halfpipe history, the outdoor flat area right outside the Palau St. Jordi for the park+street venue and the big Olympic Stadium for the biggest stuff like rallycross, FMX and speed&style. I remember investigating about the stadium and designing a RX course that would go in an out using the huge ground-level tunnels.
I knew about plenty of past events (the goddamn Olympic Games, World Aquatics Championships, etc) and, luckily, the rest of the data such as people to contact plus their telephone numbers and e-mails were publicly available (gotta check the good sites). Attendance of past events was probably the hardest thing to find out and I either outright lied or made some quick lazy calculations for some cases. I signed the proposal as the guy that ran the sports section of the Barcelona city hall and sent it. My plan was flawless, probably too perfect.
Months later, they announced the cities for the events. I lost my mind, huge joy. I did not know if it was my proposal or if the actual city hall had done something on their own and I did not care. For a few months, I was just happy X-Games Barcelona was happening at all. I could watch some of the best action sports athletes in the World live, maybe some Spanish TV network would show it live to the masses, so cool!
I do not even remember how I reacted when they announced the schedule and venues for X-Games Barcelona. I had done it, I had successfully organized an international sports event! It was not "similar to my proposal", it was my proposal. They followed it to a tee, they only changed one thing (endurocross got moved from Palau St. Jordi to the Olympic Stadium and the rallycross event would be only inside the stadium), they even decided that building a halfpipe over a diving pool just to get the gnarliest photos ever was a great idea. I had kept it secret since then (I was afraid of the legal issues) but, with everything announced, I just started telling friends, family and classmates about it.
One classmate told me to write to ESPN, ABC and the Barcelona city hall about what I had done and that I wanted to be part of the event (a couple of VIP passes and making it somewhat public would have been more than enough). I tried to contact them all in quite a few ways. I must have sent like 50 unique e-mails in like 3 days.,I explained my story, with even more detail including how I got the data for the repercussion and attendance figures, but to no avail. Nobody believed me, most never replied and those who did made it very clear that the only one responsible was the city hall, that it was all their idea. Maybe they did not want to admit it, they did not want to admit some stupid nobody had spent like 3 hours on his computer and had successfully tricked both sides in such a way.
In the end, the event was a bit of a failure. A combination of poor ticket sales (a lot of locals thought most top athletes would not come) and the weather helped killing the Barcelona event and even the whole X-Games The Expansion project was dead. I attended the Park+Street finals and the endurocross race at the Olympic Stadium.
All in all, I gotta admit my plan had two big problems:
· I did not realize that skaters and BMX riders would never be able to reach the heights needed to get the cool shots I had in my mind.
· I did not take screenshots, all the proof I had was an invalid link indicating that I had sent a proposal for X-Games The Expansion.
Now you know about it.
