The city of Sterling and Carine Skate Park hosted the Freestyle Now skate festival over the weekend.
The festival, which is a Perth-based action sport enterprise started in 1986, provided a place where people aged 12-25 could come and show off their skills with a skateboard, scooter, or BMX bike and compete for reputation and fun prizes.
There were plenty of prizes to claim and many other activities to enjoy such as a ninja warrior course and a free sausage sizzle.
Freestyle Now hosts freestyle stunt events all over Australia allowing young talent to showcase their skills and earn some reputation in different skateparks in Australia.
Kim Bloodson from Freestyle Now was busy being an announcer and judge on the day, making sure competition was fair but also enjoyable.
Kim said an events like these are important in order to push the future generation, and it “helps keep kids out of trouble.”
“If you’re dedicated to your subculture, you’re going to be doing awesome stuff at the skatepark instead of bad stuff”.
“The competition allows people to get some prestige and say that they were number one at Carine, so everyone gets something out of it,” said Kim.
One of the daredevils in action in Carine Skate Park on Saturday was Aaron Bright.
Aaron has been scootering for eight years.
“I used to watch Ryan Williams (Australian freestyler and BMX rider) on Youtube and he really opened my eyes up to scootering seeing him do all the flips and tricks”.
He rides and performs stunts on his scooter just for fun.
“I originally wanted to make a career of it but it never came around,” Aaron says.
While the festival was a place to have fun and enjoy skating and scootering it was also a site for remembrance this year.
A memorial was dedicated to a young skater of the community who had passed away at the beginning of the year.
Nathan Roberts was a local boy whose death hit the skating community hard but has had overall a big influence.
“His death has really brought the community together,” said Aaron.
“The skate park used to be really quiet but since his death, it has really picked up.”
