Two and a half summer days in Berlin. Ten shop teams – i.e. Barrio, Civilist, Lobby, Mantis, Orange Jungle, Pivot, Search and Destroy, Skatedeluxe, Titus and Titus Düsseldorf. Jumpramps and a truck. Basketball performances and UPS deliveries. Iceplants and Aperol Spritz. A relay death race and some heartfelt karaoke. Good times and great skateboarding. That’s what the Vans Shop Riot is all about.

While Vans kicked off this year’s German edition of the Shop Riot, and people were already sending it over a truck, parked in-between some jumramps at Skatehalle Berlin, Fabian was still sitting on a train, sending some DMs and watching the madness go down on everybody’s stories. Hence, no photos from this one… “Die Bahn machts möglich”. Max got it all on film, though (as you can see above). And even though contests are about skating, at least to some degree, they’re even more about getting people together – and them Shop Riots have always been particularly good at that. So why be bummed on the Bahn*, if right upon late arrival, you just keep running into one good friend after another.

*(the German railroad company)

A long Berlin summer night later, things got heated up again at the indoor park. Ten shop teams from all around Germany stepped onto the course for some not so classic runs, including basketball performances and UPS deliveries. Civilist came in third with Petros Vlachos, Carolina Gamboa and Gino Körner, Barrio came in second with Gabriel Kahl, Florence Ulrich and Alexis Pavlidis, while Skatedeluxe took the win on this one with Sascha Scharf, Alexis Mae and Tim Janke.

Next up: two pretty gnarly quarter pipes in the outdoors’ area of Skatehalle Berlin. Since the indoor park had slowly turned into a sauna, certainly no one minded to catch some air – literally as well as figuratively – and Camdon Davis caught a lot of it. He saved the MVP title for himself and Hamburg’s Mantis skate shop with some frontside airs, backside bonelesses and iceplants to fakie. An honorable mention goes out to Sascha Scharf, who 360 flipped the channel to fakie. The stoke was real!

As an interlude, we got an Aperol Spritz-fuelled concert by Carlo Karacho and DJakey (who also killed it as the event’s full-time MC). Then, things got pretty gnarly again with what’s probably the most honest type of competition there is in skateboarding: a good old death race. Vans made it a relay race kinda thing – thus, including every single member of the competing teams. Justen Ernst, Vanessa Konte and Lutz Schreier survived this one for Pivot skate shop, everybody got their stokes and we all should seriously consider a petition to cut out everything else and make the relay death race an Olympic discipline. Anyways, Barrio skate shop got crowned overall champion and hence, will proceed to the European Grand Final of the Vans Shop Riot on Skate Shop Day 2025 (February, 17th). We’re looking forward to this one! Massive thanks to Vans for getting us out to Berlin and making it all happen! And in case of there being another Karaoke party at the Grand Final, please get Finn Nietz out there again…