Next Saturday, October 29, Bay Skate will take over Bayfront Park. Super Wheels will be onsite around the fountain to provide skate rentals, entrance tickets to its South Miami location, and floor guards to keep skaters safe. Zignum Mezcal will be on hand with cocktail tastings, and skaters can also partake of craft beer, food, and live music. The brothers expect a major turnout: 10,000, up from 2,500 at Bay Skate's first edition.
“Our first event was just a launch of bringing back this nostalgic skating experience. A lot of people didn’t understand when we said we’re throwing a skating event. People thought it was '70s themed, but in reality, it’s a throwback to those who were born and raised in Miami,” Marcos says. “Monday nights used to be skate night; everyone used to go to Hot Wheels and show off their best moves. This was to capture the nostalgia of a culture that’s very alive in Miami.”
The brothers' business, Macias Creative, is located across from Bayfront Park. Two years ago, while taking in the views, they connected similarities in the Mildred & Claude Pepper Fountain to that of a skating rink and decided to get creative with the use of public space for community enjoyment.
In 2014, they won the Miami Foundation Public Space Challenge and hosted their first event in February 2015. Bay Skate began as a way to get Miami to enjoy the outdoors while providing an activity for families, but it quickly grew into an event for skate culture as well. Their second event was last October as a preview to Halloween. Now the brothers say they have a four-part plan to move forward and make the event a community staple.
“My big vision is this should be the Rockefeller Center of Miami. I know it’s an ambitious goal, but I really believe our skate culture is that rooted. Instead of trying to re-create an ice-skating rink like we’ve done in the past, we have something much stronger,” Marcos says. “We would love to see this experience live permanently as part of the Bayfront program and be a program we bring to downtown and to the people who live here.”
Bay Skate also partnered with Miami-Dade Transit, which will give away seven-day passes to attendees who download the app or show a transit pass. Metromover will operate until 2 a.m. that night. For the brothers, the skate event is a way to activate the Miami community for a fun free outing while bringing creative and cultural development to the city.
“Few events are unique to Miami, but when you can say, ‘I visited Miami and skated by the bay,’ these are experiences that are proprietary to our city,” Alex says. “As we evolve and make the big buildings and development and people choose to visit or live here, these are the types of ideas that make us unique and different and really define who we are.”
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Bay Skate
Open to the public S
