I’ll be honest with you - writing these editorials used to be really tough before covid - I used to dread writing them. My editorial’s mission is to sum up the flavour of the magazine while also taking the pulse of the industry. But despite our radical outward persona, the boardsports industry is a very conservative space, with very few radical technological advances and highly newsworthy stories always involved a lot of digging.
But since the coronavirus shook our industry to its core, there’s been plenty to report on. In order, the flow of communication was shattered, production soon became a real concern, then the supply chain and now the prospect of price rises being the latest massive issue to deal with. Brands are seeing huge ancillary cost rises, with shipping container costs up 500%, shipping bottlenecks, logistics companies hugely delayed, and a price rise in most raw materials.
