X Festival – Looking ahead

X Festival

The X Festival Stage showcases live entertainment during each day of the X Games, with DJ’s at all times, and popular headline bands booked for live music on stage. With family-friendly entertainment to complement world-class action sports competition, X Fest will host a variety of entertainment and activities.

The sponsors of X Game will be out in force, providing interactive courses, concessions, athlete interviews and autograph signings, installations by artists, Esports competitions and much more. You can keep up-to-date with all that is going on with free Wi-Fi for all. X Fest is free to everyone on the evening before the X Games begin, from when an event ticket is required to enter X Fest.

2017 Winter X Games: Aspen

The 2017 winter X Games in Aspen, had top tier performers headliing. Hip-hop hitmaker Anderson .Paak whose two 2016 albums, both reached top 10 of Billboard’s top R&B hits. He then signed with Aftermath records and is working with the legend Dr. Dre. Then there’s hip giant and outspoken lyricist G-Eazy and EDM Festival headliner Bassnectar one of the hardest working DJs today, and The Chainsmokers.

X Games: Minneapolis

Concerts

The concerts surrounding the summer 2017 X Games at Minneapolis’ new NFL mega-palace pleased young music fans. Admission passes for the games included tickets for the concerts.

Local hip-hop stars Atmosphere will headline the show on Sunday, their third hometown show of the year having already played to a sell-out crowd in March to inaugurate the renovated Palace Theatre in Austin’s downtown St Paul. They also played at the Soundset Festival in May. Warped Tour mainstays A Day to Remember will headline on Friday and Australian electro-pop producer Flume will headline on Saturday. The concerts will take place outside the stadium during the X Games contests on 13-16 July.

Live entertainment

The X Fest Stage provides live entertainment over the full duration of X Fest with amazing DJ’s, exciting bands and incredible prizes. Artists playing the stage include:

• DJ Shannon Blowtorch, award-winning DJ and resident DJ of the X Games weekend.
• DJ Livia & DJ Precious – part of the Monster Kids Crew out of Chicago.
• TJ Mizell – currently the touring DJ with A$AP Ferg
• Red Baraat – A multi-cultural group from Brooklyn dubbed “the best party band in years”
• The Flavor Savers – a sketch comedy electro-rap dance group
• White Reaper – Straight down the middle rock n’ roll from Kentucky

Art installations

X Games has also invited several visual artists who will be bringing their skills to X Games Minneapolis with live painting executions and large scale installations, including an eight-foot steel and yarn installation created just for X Games by local artist Hot Tea.

You can create your own skateboard design in an interactive skateboard art studio with Mark Rivard Art and his team

Creative City Challenge sponsored by the Minneapolis Council will showcase an impressive installation designed to inform visitors of the effects of climate change on bird species.

Other artists that could be seen at the 2017 X Fest were Adam Turman, Dinky Donalds, Wes Winship, Biafra, WUNDR, Greg Gossel, Jeremy Wright and Andrew Broder.

Photography Contest

X Games’ bi-annual action sports photography contest, World of X Games Presents ZOOM, will be back at X Games Minneapolis with its signature lightbox installations of the six finalist photographs.

Try it out

A professionally designed Skateboard street and BMX park, the Skateboard Pump track, plus interactive courses allow X Game fans to aim to be the next X Games superstar. In 2017, Sour Punch Next X Parks will also feature daily pro athlete demonstrations on the vert ramp, giving kids of all ages the opportunity to learn how to vert.

Online competitive gaming

FACEIT, a leading online competitive gaming platform, has launched a new Esports competition to take place within X Fest. Teaming up with ESPN X Games, FACEIT X Games Rocket League Invitational will have competitors in rounds of Rocket League (a hybrid of arcade-style soccer and driving) trying to win cash prizes from a $75,000 prize pool. This will be streamed live on ESPN3 and other platforms.

Looking ahead: 2018

X Games already have their eye on their 2018 return to the spacious US Bank Stadium, outdoor plaza and Commons Park in Minneapolis. Organisers are happy with the inaugural event of 2017, but are already planning to make next summer even better, with the aim of achieving capacity crowds across the board. The aim is to keep interest high in extreme sports for the return visit, to encourage even more people to attend.

The 2017 X Games attracted 110,000 visitors, many of whom travelled significant distances to spectate.

The X Games had previously squeezed into the Los Angeles venues or had been spread out across Austin, Texas. Minneapolis offered X Games the chance to host almost every event on one floor for the first time since the space inside the US Bank Stadium allowed this.

X Fest aim to keep all tickets affordable. With prices ranging from $20 to $30 per day, it is possible to visit the Stadium at a price cheaper than a baseball game. With eighteen hours’ of telecasting, Minneapolis got good exposure.

X Games course designs and the action sports themselves are altered a little each year. In 2017, the introduction of the Moto X Quarterpipe High Air pushed the boundaries of the sport. It is not just the sport that changes each year. The organisers will look at all the festival elements and music from the perspective of the sport as they plan 2018. It may be possible that the games expand to the Mississippi River just four blocks from the stadium, or perhaps on the lakes, though no decision has yet been released.

X Games infrastructure also gave stadium crews new ideas, with camera angles and wiring exceeding technical needs for a typical Vikings game or concert. Learning how the flow of the event works means that already the group know that things will be even better next year.