Red Bull Heavy Metal, Boston, Report: People Worry Snowsports Are Dying—This is How You Bring It to the People

Red Bull Heavy Metal Boston Trip Report from February 21, 2026

There are two interesting yet conflicting mindsets that exist in most passionate skiers and snowboarders heads nowadays:

1. The sport is dying. Skiing and snowboarding are becoming unaffordable, complicated, and unapproachable for people who aren’t already connected to the sport.
2. The sport has too many crowds. Lift lines are growing, prices have never been higher, and we miss the good old days of skiing and snowboarding.

Now, those two generally accepted ideas go against each other, and NSAA data shows that the sports have never been more popular in the U.S. But, for the sake of this article, I, like most snowsports enthusiasts, believe that we’d like our sports to continue to grow in influence within the general American zeitgeist.

Easier said than done, but after attending the Red Bull Heavy Metal event this past weekend in Boston, I believe that it sets one of the best examples of how we can achieve a broader reach of our culture.

When you picture skiing or snowboarding near a big city, your mind likely turns to the crappy bunny hills where one typically learns to ski. For Boston, that may be Blue Hills, Ski Ward, Ski Bradford, etc. Those little bumps have an important place in the ski industry, but they aren’t exactly awe-inspiring or convincing enough to make one pick up the sport.

Red Bull Heavy Metal is the opposite. It takes the idea of bringing some of the best riders in the sport—Zeb Powell, Telma Särkipaju, Benny Milam, etc., and puts them in the middle of downtown Boston, at the focal point of City Hall. It gives people—passionate skiers/snowboarders, casual ski/snowboard enthusiasts, and even just passers-byers a place to witness the sport at peak performance. And it works really well.

While finding exact numbers on U.S. snowsports events is hard, Red Bull Heavy Metal cited this year’s one-day attendance at 25,000 spectators. What other ski/snowboard event rivals that? The 2026 Winter X Games hosts over 50,000 fans across a three-day period, roughly equating to 17,000 fans/day. The Stifel Killington Cup (although it did not happen this year) has seen crowds of ~40,000 fans across a weekend, or 20,000 spectators/day. The exact numbers don’t matter, but my point is that Red Bull Heavy Metal is one of the biggest ski/snowboard events on the continent. Who would have guessed?

But the difference with X Games and FIS World Cup races is that your average Joe isn’t stumbling through Aspen and stopping by to see the X Games half pipe finals. The people watching those events, more often than not, are already in the ski/snowboard or mountain culture world to begin with. This means that while it can certainly deepen people’s connection with the sport, it isn’t often creating new fans of the sport (at least, in person).

As far as the actual competition went, it was fantastic. The pace was fast. Rider after rider would fly through the zones, hitting different features and tricks, so that there was never a dull moment. From double backflips to 720s, the event showcased the best that modern street snowboarding has to offer.

When all was said and done, 17-year-old LJ Henriquez took the overall crown for the men while Telma Särkipaju took the win for the women. 

Red Bull Heavy Metal provides a typically largely missed opportunity for everyday people to witness high-performance snowboarding, and we need more of that. But few brands have the capital, marketing, athlete connections, and logistical capabilities to pull an event like this off. So for now, we can make the most of the four Heavy Metal stops across North America: Minneapolis, Pittsburgh, Boston, and Montreal.

But how cool would it be to bring an event of this size to New York City, Chicago, or even Los Angeles?

It may seem crazy, but ski events of much bigger sizes have happened in the past, such as when in 1938, 88,000 people packed the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum to witness 60 ski jumpers compete under the Southern California sun. Skiing and snowboarding have had a crazy history, and it only goes to show that these sports have so much potential to entertain and reach huge audiences. As long as you think creatively.