Skate and Surf Festival seeks a return to Asbury Move requires OK from City Council

By Jill Bartlett

Before the Bamboozle festival grew into the biggest music festival in the state, there was Skate and Surf.

While it doesn’t appear Bamboozle will return to the shores of Asbury Park, or anywhere else, in the next-to-near future, founders of the event are making a bid to bring the Skate and Surf Festival back to Asbury Park May 17 and 18, according to event organizer William O’Brien.

O’Brien will present a special event application to members of the City Council at the March 26 meeting. He has been working with Surf and Skate founder John D’Esposito to return the concert series to its Asbury roots, he said.

“We hope to have everyone get behind it and be supportive in Asbury Park,” he said. “It started in Asbury and our goal is to bring it back home.”

The application requests Bradley Park as the venue location, O’Brien said. Bradley Park is located between Fifth and Sunset Avenues just west of Convention Hall.

Local acts Midtown, Hidden in Plain View and Brick + Mortar are listed on the bill.

“We’re going back to how it began,” O’Brien said. “These are all Jersey kids, there won’t be any tour buses here, everyone will be driving their cars.”

The Middletown Sports Complex was originally selected as the 2014 venue, according to the event website.

Skate and Surf Fest got its start in Asbury Park in 2001 and later grew into the Bamboozle Festival managed by national concert promoter LiveNation and held at Giants Stadium. Promoters brought Bamboozle back to Asbury Park in 2012 but announced shortly after the festival they would not bring it back the following year.

See the full lineup at skateandsurffest.com.

[Clarification: After this article was posted, Tom Gilmour, chairman of the city’s special events committee, contacted the Sun to state while the Asbury Park Special Events committee has reviewed the application forwarded it to the City Council for a final decision, there will not be a scheduled presentation from the applicants at the Wednesday meeting. He did, however, ask the applicants to come to the meeting just in case there were any questions from council members.]

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Mar 20, 2014