Simple Session
Simple Session is an international extreme sports event taking place annually in Estonia.
As the event has grown by years, it has also branched outside of Estonia with its Simple Summer Session series, with 2010 and 2011 events taking place in Helsinki, Finland and 2017 and 2018 in Riga, Latvia.
History
2000
The first event, then named Pepsi Street Challenge, was held in the year 2000 in newly opened outdoor Simpel Skatepark, Tähtvere, Tartu. In the first ever year, the event featured BMX and skateboarding disciplines, including inline skating, BMX vert and dirt. The first event cost only about 10,000 krones to organize.2001
As a result of the success of the first year, the event took place in the following year as well. Now renamed to Simpel Session due to the sponsorship deal with EMT's Simpel brand, the event was extended to two days and featured BMX flatland in addition to BMX dirt, BMX street/park, inline park, inline vert and skateboarding street/park disciplines.2004
In 2004 the event moved to an indoor location at Saku Suurhall in Tallinn which allowed the event to be held during wintertime in the subsequent years.It was also the first year Red Bull teamed up with the event and built a special competition course for the event.
2005
As part of the sponsorship deal with EMT, the event was renamed to POP! Session for subsequent two years, named after EMT's other brand POP!.2007
In 2007, Nate Wessel, who has designed skateparks for Woodward and X Games, designed and built the skatepark for the event.In addition to the main event in January, a secondary event, Simpel Session Summer Splash, took place for the first time in August.
2009
2009 rendition also featured another summertime event - the Simpel Summer Session 09 at the Freedom Square in Tallinn.2010
Simpel Session celebrated its 10 year anniversary event.In comparison to the first ever event, the 2010 event cost about 4 million krones.
The 2010 summertime event was the first year the event branched outside of Estonia. It took place in Helsinki, Finland and was held on the 13th of August.
2011
Summer Session of 2011 took place Helsinki once again on the 20th of August.2012
As the longtime sponsorship deal with EMT ended, the competition's name was changed to Simple Session and it was registered as an international trademark.By then Simple Session had become one of the most popular BMX and skate events of the year, resulting a hefty media coverage reaching millions of unique viewers.