Nokia Portugal Parkour Event


The new Nokia 5500 Sports phone

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UF in Portugal
With the global campaign of the Nokia 5500 phone launching worldwide, Nokia agents in various countries are setting up their own demo's and events using the UF team to perform and to host a series of workshops. The first official high profile launch was to be set in Portugal to be run in association with a national skateboard competition, that was being held in Lisbon from the 14th - 18th of September. The venue was set in a wooded area with a skateboard zone that seated hundreds of spectators and had a healthy selection of quarter pipes and street obstacles. Right next to it was a Parkour zone complete with 2 x scaffolding structures, vault boxes, a couple of cars and balance beams. This too, had an area for spectators and all around blaring music could be heard from the speakers as the DJ played a selection of hip hop, metal, reggae and drum n bass tunes. The music helped to really set the tone and in the glorious sunshine with food and drink on tap, this was set to be a very special event indeed.

Day one
Arrived at the hotel, dropped off our kit and were promptly driven over to the venue to check out what we had to work with. Upon arriving, we saw a bunch of traceurs in black tee-shirts sessioning hard. Before introducing ourselves to the Parkour guys, our attention had been diverted towards the 100's of banners that were everywhere. These were from the print campaign that we shot in Singapore and they are visually spectacular. After taking loads of pictures and working out ways to pinch the banners, Introductions were made to the Parkourpt.com guys. From there we had a little play with the scaffolding structures before heading back to the hotel where we received an itinerary for the days ahead. Thankfully, the next day was going to be for media only and wasn't going to happen until 6pm. This gave everyone plenty of time to rest and plan ahead.

Day two
We decided to arrive nice and early to plan a choreographed piece. After a few hours of practising and blocking it, the various media representatives arrived and took their places in the bleachers. Before the performance kicked off, we requested some high tempo hip hop to be played throughout. As the track kicked off to prompt the guys into action, I could only laugh my ass off as it was 'Hey ya' by Outkast.  It was too late to do anything about it so they guys had to block out the aural assault and get on with it. The piece itself lasted about 2.5 minutes and in hindsight, it was over too quickly. However, the crowd loved it and after being invited to join in the workshop afterwards, many people stepped up to try it out for themselves as we taught very basic entry stuff. A small jam busted out afterwards which helped end the day on a high note.

Day three
On the third day we were given a schedule of 12, 3 and 6pm for the performances with short workshops after each one. Seeing as the previous days performances were so short, we decided to beef it up a bit and padded it out with runs involving only 2 athletes at a time before ending with a bigger group run. All the performances proved to be a big hit and were received really well. So much so, that upon the DJ announcing each piece on the loud speaker, the seats were quickly packed out. After each piece, workshops were in effect but it also paved the way for some open jamming with the Portuguese traceurs, who stepped up with a healthy level of skill and passion. Very quickly a friendly competition broke out with individuals stepping up to show who could do the biggest double kongs, running precisions, diving kongs etc. It was all done in a nice way and very quickly, a healthy level of respect between the two sectors was formed.

Day four
Day four was pretty much the same as day three but with it being centre stage for the skate finals, it attracted more people to spectate. Each of our demo's was again, attended by many and an equal number of people lined up to try out the workshops. The people trying ranged from regular joe's to kids and skateboarders. Over the few days two traceurs in particular caught my eye with a very good skill level and and equally good attitude. After lengthy discussions in-between training, I decided to invite Hilario 'Ninja' Freire and Jose 'Zeric' Gama on board the UF team with a view to setting up a new international division. To my delight, they accepted the offer and are now going to be involved in the bigger picture with some of the higher profile projects lined up ahead. With that in the bag, pockets of activity were breaking out all over with people doing precision drills, playing on the scaffolding, people doing muscle ups, pistol squats and a variety of vaults over the boxes. All in all, the experience was another really positive one with friendships being formed and tips being swapped. The skills and enthusiasm of the Portuguese traceurs was inspiring and they now have the exciting possibility of having a permanent Parkour training facility erected, as Nokia were delighted with how everything went.

We'd like to say a big thank you to all the spectators who's support was much appreciated, to all the members of Parkourpt.com who were a fantastic bunch of guys, to Brandia Central for taking care of all the logistics, to Joao our chauffeur for being on call 24/7 and last but not least to Nokia, who have so far provided 100% backup to our cause.