#giveFORUMtoPETER

Before reading...please note that this little rant is the opinion of the author, ME, and not of the brands I work for. This little typing spree of crap comes about after a 3 day road trip visiting shops in NY, NJ and PA. Every shop we went into would within 5 minutes of being in the shop bring up the subject of Forum being put to bed and how upset they were, then ask me what my opinion of the matter was. That being said, enjoy the non factual - all observant based RANT that I wrote on the 6 hour flight home from Newark to Seattle sitting in a middle seat about the answer I gave over and over and over....

Are you kidding me? All the hoopla over saving Forum? GIVE it back to Peter? Really? Shit if there was this much excitement over the brand during the last few years the brand wouldn’t have been put to rest. You want to know why Burton cut the cord on Forum? Cause not too many people gave too many shits about it, that’s why. Forum is a brand that failed and by the grace of the snowboard Gods in Vermont got a second chance at life and then failed again.

Here’s what I remember about the original Forum, pre Burton. They had 8 dudes that could shred their faces off, the product from back then sucked, they wouldn’t pay to license the Locking Freedom Groove from Rev, so they developed their own system called the Slider, which is what the system did when bindings were attached to it, the dudes that ran the companies were ego maniacs and drove Mercedes that they spent an extra $80G on Brabus tuning because a $100G Mercedes wasn’t cool enough, there was a $25G salt water fish tank the offices, and the company was based in BroCal, the epi-center of snow shredding.... Yea pre-Burton was glorious.

So then the Gods of snowboarding from VT come along and save their ass. VT assembles the best rep force that the brands ever seen, develop bindings that are better than the unibody clamps that they’re currently slinging, put quality into the boards, ship boots that fit comfortably, ship clothing on time, continue to support kick ass snowboarders, continue to put out baller ass team movies (F_CK IT was insane) and all the while the public and shops say “dude, why are you making me buy this shit, I’d rather put my money into Burton.” So after a while the Gods in VT look at the numbers and say, shit boys, you know we sell more Customs than we sell of our entire Forum brand? You know we sell more Missions than we sell of our Shaka bindings? You know we sell more Mini Moto’s than we do these Tweaker boots? Why the fuck are we wasting our time and money on this?

The sad part of this whole story is that the Gods from VT pulled the ripcord too quickly. What they should have done is waited until late January to make this decision. Then most of the product would have been sold at retail, reps would have been paid and there wouldn’t be this uproar over the failing brand. Now you got retailers going why the fuck do I want to sell a brand that’s dead? Reps saying, clinics…what clinics? And people that have jobs in the snowboard business saying #giveFORUMtoPETER when they should be saying #getPETERaFUCKINGjob.

Good luck Mr. Line, but I don’t think you need that. You ‘re smart, talented, witty, wealthy and the last thing you need is Forum. Seriously, you don't. But you never know, they say the third time is a charm.