Its trade show silly season in the snowboarding world. SIA, the US’s major show just finished on Sunday, and without giving anyone time to get over the hangovers, Europe’s biggest show ISPO also started on Sunday. That’s a bitch of a clash of schedules for anyone in the snowboarding industry.

Now that the trade show circus is in our neck of the woods we thought we’d take a look at the industry in Europe. Specifically we thought it would be interesting to ignore the traditional big guns of France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Italy and see what the other places have to offer. And to keep the list just partially sane we limited ourselves to just looking at companies producing snowboard. See how many of these oddly located brands and manufacturers you recognise…

Just been to the London Art Fair (coz I'm all cultured 'n shit) and spotted two photographer/artists who are both hitting up European ski resorts for inspiration. There were a couple of photos that caught the eye... 

If you like the Western Christian Gregorian calendar, and you like naked people then here’s what you need to organise your life this year…

Back in the 70s and 80s snowboarding was a bit simpler. You grabbed a snowboard which would be pretty much the same as everyone else’s snowboard, you went to one of the few places that allowed snowboarding, hung out with the small but close-knit community of fellow snowboarders, if you got good you could compete with any other snowboarder in the slalom and the halfpipe in the few events that existed and if you were really good you could star that season’s film.

Then all of a sudden things started to get a bit more complicated…