The OneTake Cup 2022 as Recounted by Producer Reese

This coming Sunday will mark the 1 year anniversary of a special event in OneTake history. OneTake Media’s very first OneTake cup will always hold a special place in my heart. Definitely one of the most hype events during year 1 of operations. The planning for this event was immaculate, the turnout was pretty awesome, the guys were hard at work, and the skating was hype. Absolute madness. 

Dan with some of the winners of the OneTake Cup.

The entire four or five weeks prior to the OneTake Cup, the team (pretty much only Dan) would be out doing some selling/promotion for the event. Like seriously, I was very impressed with how Danny Dials was able to pull together a handful of skate shops to sponsor the OneTake Cup. And when I say “sponsor,” I mean these shops were contributing all sorts of  merch to hand out: T-shirts, stickers, and even full decks. Shoutout to SF Skate Club, HUF SF, LowKey Skateshop, and Mission Skate once again. One week prior to the event, I believe Dan and I made our way to Soma Skate Park (where the event would be held), in order to film a final promotion reel- and also so Dan could do some last minute canvassing amongst the skaters. Can’t forget about the HYPE announcement poster we put together and hung all around the city and in different skate shops. 

Fast forward to the day of the actual event. Before heading out to the skate park, we rendezvous at HQ with all of the supplies needed to throw a sick tournament- including a Keg, a generator (I’ll get to this later), a collapsible table, a large timer, an air horn, and some waivers for the skaters to sign. We obviously had more stuff, but I’m only mentioning what the necessities were. Anyway, we get to the park around 12 or 1pm (I can’t quite remember), and there are already a lot of skaters present. At this point, we weren’t sure if they were here for the event or not. Regardless, we set up shop, and the anticipation ensues. 

I was gonna make this kind of a funny blog and lie about how good of a contributor I was to the team this day - but I think it’s funnier if I reveal to the audience how my actual performance was. Sorry Dan, you can still rip on me in your blog if you want.

Producer Reese with a Dump in his Pants.

Anyway, I was rocked as shit. To make matters worse, my boys were also there to “help” with the event. Shoutout to Tony Bautista and Hyphy Soles. For the first hour or so before the tournament skating actually started, I’m pretty sure we were just circle jerking around the park, acting busy, chopping it up with the skaters, and giving some dumb smiles. Dan was the only one coordinating the event, trying to set stuff up. Oh yeah, and Emilio too, he was at least getting B-Roll shots of the park and getting the equipment ready to go. Me, Hyphy, and Tony were supposed to be handing out waivers and getting skaters to sign up for the competition. I don’t recall doing any of that. But somehow, we were still able to get the actual tournament going.

The skating itself was probably the smoothest part of the entire event. For the most part, the skaters followed the rules and remained as organized as possible in order for operations to run correctly. The skating, paired with the live music (that’s right we had a fucking band playing live music in the skatepark - that’s what the generator was for, even though we didn’t end up using it), paired with Dan’s MC skills made it a pretty awesome event altogether. On the other hand we hand Tony Bautista running the timer (what a debacle), me filming a secondary angle of the skating (not really - I literally was just standing in one section of the park holding up a GoPro), and some competitors who ended up disqualifying themselves for leaving the skatepark, mid-run, while dancing (shoutout Ebon - that had to be one of the best moments of the day). 

Dan and Tony Bautista.

As I told Dan before, if we didn’t have any video proof of the day, no one would believe any of this ever happened. Try describing the events of the OneTake Cup to a friend, and they’ll think you’re describing a recent fever dream. That’s how crazy this day was. Anyway, it was quite a learning experience for myself - and I actually do hope we are able to throw more competitions in the future (maybe not the OneTake Cup, but a surf or ski event would be pretty sick). By the way, parts 1 and 2 of the OneTake Cup can be viewed here:

God Bless,

Producer Reese.