



Five weeks to the day after Austin won the Summer X Games, Detroit bid organizers rebound with a fresh idea for a downtown street festival called Assemble.

It's envisioned as a week-long mix of action sports, music and art -- sort of an Arts, Beats and Eats with skateboards instead of sandwiches, though food no doubt will be there.

The long-teased reveal Wednesday evening came at the expiration of a countdown clock that had been reset. The announcement is thin on details and depth, but hey -- it's just a month and a week since ESPN's snub.

Here's what Garret Koehler and Kevin Krease post via social media:

Launching in Summer 2014, Assemble is an annual festival in the streets of Downtown Detroit that brings together our most essential parts: Sport, Noise, Idea and Form. We are creating action sports competitions that rival the best in the world. Period. We are creating a music festival that champions creativity, collaboration and most importantly, volume. We are creating a space where relevant ideas become actionable. We are creating a showcase for the various forms of art that crush the outwardly mundane and boring.

And finally, we are continuing our collective pursuit to share Detroit’s story with the world.

That's pretty much it for now -- no word yet on sponsors, partners, locations or tentative dates for the "late summer" event.

There's a new hashtag (#timetobuild), logo, Facebook page (400 likes in the first hour), redirected Twitter feed (@AssembleDetroit) and renamed Instagram page. The stark, black-and-white website has just a landing page with links to those social media.

The Energizer organizers -- who had financial support earlier from downtown booster Dan Gilbert and presumably still do -- say in their post:

We’ll have significant announcements with details related to each of these four categories (Sport : Noise : Idea : Form) over the next few weeks. In the meantime, this doesn’t happen without your support. Seriously, we all have a lot of work to do.

It sounds like nothing to sniff at, though that word comes to mind for some reason as we look at Sport, Noise, Idea, Form.

Wednesday, 3:26 p.m.:

This is a "stay tuned" wave rather than a "Deadline has learned . . ." bulletin.



Tony Hawk (left) and Derrick Dykas pose Wednesday at Ride It Sculpture Park in Detroit. (Facebook photo) (Facebook photo)

Here's what we know about upcoming news from Kevin Krease and Garret Koehler, the spark plugs behind this year's X Games Detroit finalist bid for the 2014-16 ESPN summer event:

Their website's countdown clock hits zero at 6 p.m. Wednesday. No clue as to what happens then, but a logical guess is an announcement of plans for some sort of locally sponsored extreme sports event. Their post-X Games slogan, after all, is Not Done Yet.

Skateboard deity Tony Hawk is in town right now. The X Games vets, busy prepping for whatever, "took a little break from the madness of today to meet an important dude who cares about the future of Detroit and skateboarding," as a 2:30 p.m. Facebook post says under this photo of the VIP visitor and Krease (right). We're trained not to leap beyond facts, so simply will say the phrase "who cares about the future of Detroit and skateboarding" suggests Hawk figures into this evening's newsbreak.

One of Hawk's stops was Ride It Sculpture Park along the East Davison Freeway, where he posed with Krease and also tweeted the Intagram shot below with this message: "Thanks to Mitch Cope for showing us around this inspiring Detroit neighborhood today." Will Cope also be part of the announcement . . . perhaps in a video taped today? Does "romance" tie in? We stay tuned for an update.

Hawk's next stop was at Transitions Skate Park on Van Born Court in Dearborn Heights. We're all done speculating, so no wild guess what that could mean -- if anything.