Forum Snowboarding
Forum Snowboarding is a line of snowboards created by Four Star Distribution and pro snowboarder Peter Line in Irvine, California in 1996. Forum Snowboards also has outwear companies and a Four Square Team.
 Forum Snowboards 2006 logo | |
| Private | |
| Industry | Sports, snowboarding |
| Founded | Irvine, California (1996–2012) |
| Headquarters | Irvine, California, United States |
Key people | Peter Line, Joni Malmi, Travis Kennedy, Jake Blauvelt, Pat Moore, Eddie Wall, Stevie Bell, John Jackson, Jake Welsh |
| Products | Snowboards Clothing Video |
| Revenue |  |
Number of employees | 50? (2005) |
| Website | www |
History
Forum snowboards was first started by Four Star Distribution and pro snowboarder Peter Line in the summer of 1996. It also owns outerwear companies Four Square and Special Blend. The Four Square team consists of Pat Moore, Peter Line and Andreas Wiig. The Special Blend team consists of Jake Welch, John Jackson (who has since jumped ship to Burton), Stevie Bell, Nic Sauve, and the previously promoted Daniel Ek. All are on the Forum team.[1][2]
On October 23, 2012, Burton announced it would no longer support the Forum brand.[3] However, in late 2018, the Forum brand has reappeared offering a line of hard and soft goods sold exclusively on the website the-house.com.[4] The line of Forum snowboards now feature Burton's Channel System.
Team
Peter Line attempted to create the greatest pro team ever, which resulted in "The Forum 8", arguably the most progressive group of riders ever. The Forum 8 were: JP Walker, Jeremy Jones (freestyler), Joni Malmi, Wille Yli-Luoma, Bjorn Leines, Devun Walsh, Chris Dufficy and Peter Line and were seen on Mack Dawg Productions' "The Resistance".
Since then, seven of the original eight have left Forum, with Peter Line the only original of the Forum 8 left. Walker left Forum Snowboards in June 2007, and Malmi retired in late 2009.
Burton owns Forum as well as Foursquare and Special Blend.
In its final years, the Forum team consisted of: Line, Pat Moore, Stevie Bell, Jake Welch, Nic Sauve, Nico Cioffi, Cameron Pierce, Daniel Ek, Austen Sweetin and Andreas Wiig.[5]
In September 2011, John Jackson left Forum Snowboards to join the Burton team.[6]
Videos
Forum has been working with Mack Dawg Productions to produce a number of snowboard videos including The Resistance, True Life, Video Gangs. However, their most recent video, "Forever", was not made by Mack Dawg. Forum's videos all feature riders of the Forum team along with friends of the team. In 2006, team members Stevie Bell and JP Walker appeared in one of the most highly anticipated documentaries of the year in Sunset Film's "Montreal". In the 2006–07 season, the team released a new video entitled "That". The team has since made another movie entitled "Forum Or Against'Em" with focuses strongly on the team moving on past the age of the "Forum 8"; it was released on September 15, 2008. In the fall of 2009, Forum released their latest video entitled "Forever". Also, their new video entitled "F' It" has been released on DVD and iTunes.
Boards
For the 2011 season, Forum had a line-up with many boards featuring camber, pop camber, chillidog and doubledog. These include The Destroyer, The Scallywag, The Contract, The Rat, Pat Moore Pro model, Holy Moly, The Youngblood, The Honeypot, The Manual, The Bully(2012), The Conflict, The Scheme, The Substance, The Symbol. In November 2018, Burton released 2 new versions of the Forum Destroyer and the Youngblood.
Bindings
The 2009 season produced some new and some improved bindings. They are the (men's) Arena, Republic, Faction, Lien, Recon, (women's) VSP, Moda, and Aura.
References
- Special-blend.com
- Foursquareouterwear.com
- Transworld Snowboarding John Jackson on Forum / Special Blend. Retrieved November 6, 2007