ICER AIR

History

ICER founder Glen Griffin originally created the ICER AIR event with Olympic gold medalist Jonny Moseley to promote ICER, a sports products company that developed a new type of aerosol spray-on ski and snowboard wax.

After receiving city permits to hold a ski and snowboard jump on one of San Francisco’s steepest streets, the permits were revoked 3 days before the event was to happen because of neighbor complaints and crowd concerns. The event organizers regained the permits. On September 29, 2005, over 15,000 people showed up to watch the event.

The event was moved across town in 2006 to AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants, creating the first stadium big-air ski and snowboard contest to be held in the United States. With the financial backing of Esurance, the ICER AIR event was held annually from 2006 through 2008, after which the sponsor backed out and the event was no longer held.

A 110-foot (34 m) tall, 60-foot (18 m) wide, 350-foot (110 m) long scaffold jump took 5 days to build, and was covered with 200 tons of man made snow. ICER AIR featured BMX, skate, and wakeboard competitions, as well as bands such as Jurassic 5, Ladytron, Mos Def, and Talib Kweli. The ICER AIR event drew over 25,000 people and generated over 450 million media impressions annually. Olympic Gold Medalist Jonny Moseley hosted the annual event, and notable athletes have included skaters Tony Hawk and Pierre-Luc Gagnon, Olympic and X Games gold medal snowboarders Travis Rice and Danny Kass, and X Games gold medal skiers Jon Olsson and Simon Dumont.

A scandal arose in 2008, due to athletes and others not receiving their promised fees for appearing. The event was forced to downsize then shut down completely after losing its main sponsorship funding during the 2008 financial crisis.

Chronology

Winners: C.R. Johnson - ski, J.J. Thomas - snowboard

Winners: T.J. Schiller - ski, Travis Rice - snowboard

Winners: Jon Olsson - ski, Travis Rice - snowboard