Mammut- EMS Bouldering Championships: The Vision with Pete Ward

Rock climbing means many different things to many different people. Whether it be scrambling up a 500 foot death-choss pillar, crimping on dime-edges four feet off the deck (shiver), buildering up the side of a dorm, or cranking with friends in a gym all night long, it all boils down to the same exact point: We climb to have a good time, to have fun, and most of all, to build bad-ass looking muscles. The greatest part of climbing is its infinitely versatile canvas. Neither one is better than the other because fulfillment, of course, lies within the eye of the beholder (that's Jedi Knight style right there).

Anyway, my point is that there are many different facets of climbing that perpetually evolve with each coming year due to the unwavering dedication and commitment from climber's across the globe; however, one of the most influential cornerstones of this industry's media network is changing far more rapidly than others: Indoor Competitive Rock Climbing. As regimented and professionalized teams begun to flourish across the country, sponsors have become more active than ever. With a higher level of sponsored competition and climbing professionalism comes a increased degree of public awareness, which in turn will create a greater base of media interest, stretching deeper into virgin demographics outside of the typical 10th year climber.

The competition series that has seemed to attract an increased amount of attention over the years is the Mammut-EMS Bouldering Championships; a mix between a night-long rager and a gravity induced boxing ring for 140 pound freaks. It's more than a good time.

Pete Ward, one of the upper level shakers within this wild torrent of change, has so graciously given us an exclusive look into the very heart beat of the competitive scene that is spreading without limit.


How did you guys start the Mammut-EMS Bouldering Championship Series?
Is it just you and Jason behind the founding (aside from a crew that
helps)?

The roots of the Bouldering Championships actually go way back to 2001 and the first of the Cave Rave series... I loved putting on comps and realized that rather than actual winning and losing, the point of a good comp should be to party. The first Bouldering Championships competition was the 2003 New England Bouldering Championships, an invitational run by Tim Kemple and I and hosted at the Dover Indoor Climbing Gym. We made a list of the best climbers we thought we could get to come and completely re-built the gym in a week. And by "re-built" I mean we literally built about 1000sq ft of new climbing wall in addition to setting 120+ problems and finals. You can actually still see the results and pics from that comp here:

http://www.newenglandbouldering.com/news/news.html

The NEB.com Championships got me thinking and in 2004 Jason followed Matt Stark as the head setter at the New Jersey Rock Gym so we had two gyms that we could host a comp at on lockdown. We decided to see what we could do. Anne-Worley Bauknight at USAC scheduled us comps at Metrorock, Boulder Morty's and Go Vertical to go along with the Gravity Brawl at the NJRG and we had the first ever Northeastern Bouldering Championships Tour. Although we didn't plan it this way at the time, the 2005 NEBC tour ended up being a pilot for what we do now.

In 2006 we added a business partner of mine from another venture, Lu Yan (more on him later) and surrounded ourselves with our current core team including:
a.. Tim Kemple, Tour Photog and BADASS routesetter: Nobody knows this about Tim, but in my opinion he is the 2nd best routesetter in the country (Jason is #1). Tim is the only guy in the world with his collection of talents and we are SUPER fortunate to have him.

b.. Steve Leder, Design and Creative Director: Everything we do looks sexy and relevant because of Steve's work and we are lucky shits to work with him. Steve has a huge roster of mainstream corporate clients (who I will not embarass by mentioning them here) and his influence professionalizes the look of all our visual collateral.

c.. Lee Kolocycz, Web design & Topscore: One of the innovations I'm most proud of is that we have developed a scoring system that is easy to follow, and that people can follow online like any box score from any other sport. Lee wrote that software and always hits us with the last minute 3am updates we need to make things go.
With those guys in place we went on our first major sponsorship drive and created the 2006 Mammut Bouldering Championships. Last year's tour stopped at Earth Treks, Metrorock and the Gravity Brawl and was the first tour since the PCA to give away $20k in cash to climbers in a year.

This year was a natural progression from 2006. The difference is that people have noticed what we do, how hard we work and we have been tremendously lucky to partner with some amazingly talented people out West. The relationship that we have begun with the Outdoor Retailer show is right now one of the most important relationships in the whole climbing industry because it gives us the opportunity to showcase climbing on the stage where it matters most for years to come. I can't wait to see the 2008 tour!

Hopefully in years to come we'll look back at this past comp in SLC and say "HA! Remember when 2000 spectators seemed like a lot!".

But your original question was, "Is it just Jason and me?", and the answer is HEEEEELLL NO! If we are able to be succesfull and host a sustainable pro tour of events on the scale of what we all just saw in SLC it will be because of one guy that nobody knows: Lu Yan.

Lu Yan is one of the top corporate consultants there is. I have never met ANYONE with a fraction of his drive to succeed and vision for how to solve problems. He influences Jason and I every day and brings to the table what our industry needs the most: corporate credibility. We can go into a boardroom and jump up and down on the table, and yell and scream about how cool climbing is, but if at the end of the day we don't have a bombproof, actionable plan for how to make a profit for ourselves and our sponsors, the bean counters will shut us down cold. That's where climbing has failed in the past and that's why we won't fail now. Lu knows what industry needs better than they do because he's hired to fix corporations when they become disfunctional, and now rather than waiting till something is broken, we get to reinvent an industry that's primed for massive growth. If we're watching pro climbing on TV in 5 years it'll be because of Lu Yan. Jason and I couldn't tie our own damn shoes in the morning, let alone run a pro-tour unsupervised.



You guys seem to be doing all that you can in terms of money and venue
to raise public awareness to increase professional progression of the
sport. How do you think you differ from other competition
organizations? span style="font-weight:bold;">

Thanks for noticing, that's exactly what we are trying to do. And really, your statement itself is the main difference. We're trying to influence the professional progression of the sport. That's it. Nothing else.

The ABS and USAC are really the only other people running comps out there and they do a great job. But we're trying to do different things. The ABS has this awesome roster of grassroots comps that span the country, and USAC runs Junior comps and some roped comps as well which bring thousands of kids into climbing every year. But USAC, a non-profit company trying to attract the attention of the IOC, and we're here to build competitions for climbers and our sponsors and, oh yeah, we're here to f'ing rock. Totally different goals. I've coached kids in USAC for 6yrs and run (or helped run) probably 15 or 20 ABS & USAC comps myself so I totally support what they do, but what they don't do is articulate to a wide audience why climbing is amazing, beautiful and a sport of the future. We do that. In fact, thats all we do.

It is my opinion that any kid with the desire, drive and talent to make it as a pro climber should have that opportunity, the same as any punk kid with a skateboard or a basketball. We're trying to create an new off-shoot of climbing that will add to the overall picture in a really positive way and make that a possibility.

How can you reach out to a different demographic of people each comp?
The Trad show is the same people every year, no? The Showdown seemed to
do that a bit.

Good question, and while maybe a protracted lecture on targeted marketing initiatives and how we reach out to each different demographic isn't totally appropriate for this context I will say that, at the high level, you're right on. The ASCI Showdown was a pilot project to determine the feasibility of using climbing as the centerpiece of a multi-sport outdoor event rather than a sideshow attraction. It will grow in years to come, and hopefully turn into a sort of Teva Mountain Games East. The local community is behind it, and the facility can certainly support it, so we'll see where that ends up. Right now that event looks really good for 2008, but thats all I can say for sure.

But that said, I would disagree with the sentiment that the Outdoor Retailer show is somehow not a new demographic (not that you were totally saying that). The reality is that climbing industry takes up only 20% of the attendees for any given tradeshow, so for us to have access to the whole group was a huge coup for our sport. Every company there is a potential partner for our industry, and they all saw with thier own eyes how badass climbing can be when done right. We forget how small and irrelevant our sport currently is and how far we have to go before we can really be considered one of the big dogs.

We need to continue to use the OR show as one of the showcases for our entire industry for years to come. It will be the new standard for climbing competitions.


Where do you see the competition scene in the next 10 years in terms of
advertisement and commercial awareness? Are we going to have Nike
givin' up the dough next year Pete?

Haha! Maaaaybe. Without divulging too much about who's interested in the Bouldering Championships for 2008 and beyond, I will say that a whole new level of corporate interest has cropped up over the Summer of 2007 because of the success of the ASCI Showdown and the BC tour. Unfortunately beyond that I can't go into too much detail without giving up the goods. I will say that one of the things I am personally most excited about is a project we're about to undertake; a feasibility study on with some of the most talented people in our industry, Ok, THE most talented people in our industry. Should be fun.

I guess the honest answer to your question is that I don't know. I can tell you what I don't see us doing. I don't see us selling out the sport in pursuit of unattainable goals. The great thing about our tour is that we purposefully write short-term contracts that allow us creative control over the events rather than sponsors or some large governing body. Some other small-time sports have made really bad deals to get on TV or to land a World Cup and given up control of their product in the process, and we WILL NOT do that. Jason, Lu and I love climbing way too much and we all have other careers to fall back on if this doesn't work out. We're not going to let ESPN or someone else dictate to us what climbing should look like. Don't ever look to us to run a speed bouldering comp or some freestyle dyno bullshit. That's not climbing and I don't want to see it.


What is the most challenging part of putting on these massive competitions?


Dude, nobody knows man. Nobodys knows. And maybe it's better that way. If we're pros it's supposed to look easy and we try to make it that way. I try not to whine and I'm FOR SURE grateful for the opportunity to make my living doing what I do. Shit man, last Saturday I was the only guy who could watch Chris Sharma from any goddamn seat I wanted to. That's worth it right there!

SLC, was interesting because it was the first one on that scale. Nobody had ever run a comp like that before and therefore it was all new. Lucky for me I had amazing support from people like Dustin Buckthal (owner of The Front Climbing Club), Clark Shelk of Revolution and many others actually on the ground in SLC.

I think that generally, the most challenging part is vision for the big picture and being able to properly support the people who are on the ground running the actual event. For example: In SLC we had about 50 volunteers and employees, all of whom had crucial roles. If I don't do my job right it leaves all those people on an island which really sucks when you're working for a free T-Shirt and tickets to the after-party. Honestly, one of the things I look forward to the most about blowing the doors off this thing and getting a ton of investment for 2008 is the ability write a bonus check for a judge who gets shit about a call from a competitor but keeps his or her cool and acts pro. I had a great judge in SLC who made a real tough call and got protested by one of the top guys, but she kept her cool and it was all good. We went through the protest procedures and everybody left happy. Unfortunately all I could do was say thank you at the after party, but really she deserved a phatty bonus check for keeping her head (Next time Christine!).

Most enjoyable?

Dude, I love this stuff! I have to travel all over NE on Monday for meetings with sponsors and I'll love that. I have a full day of conference calls with some great people on Tuesday and that'll be fun too. My two best friends are my business partners and I work in the sport I love. Some people hate on what we do, some people wants us to make unreasonable deals, but I don't have to deal with a shitty boss or do anything that I feel invades our integrity. All in all I'd say I'm a lucky bastard and wouldn't trade for anything. Well... that doesn't mean that interested companies shouldn't make me offers, but I am having fun. I can't wait to see where we're at in a year or two!