Red Bull Terminal Takeover, New Orleans 2022

It’s not every day you get the invite to fly to New Orleans to skate and shoot inside of an abandoned airport terminal. As a skater and a photographer, it’s the kind of access you dream of. Everywhere you go, you always see skateable scenarios, but some you just have to chalk up to “No one will ever be able to skate this.” Enter Red Bull and the brilliant idea of renting out the vacant Louis Armstrong Airport Terminal. For the second year in a row, the Terminal Takeover was a reality.

The iconic, cavernous Parabola room that once welcomed starry-eyed travelers to The Big Easy with the trumpeting statue of Louis Armstrong and ornate windows, the luggage claim downstairs, the ticketing room, and the long terminal hallway were all fitted with ramps, quarter pipes, flatbars, ledges, and DIY obstacles that naturally blended with the marbley-smooth airport floor.

Jake Wooten, Alex Sorgente, Shawn Hale, Devin Flynn, Kareem Campbell, Vincent Matheron, and Joey Brezinski had the terminal to themselves for a day before the shop teams showed up. THPS was set up for all to play on a bunch of TVs, and with Kareem actually in the building, it felt like we were living in one of the game’s levels.

Eight skate shop teams and crews from seven different states were also invited to the old MSY Terminal to film their own edits and basically run wild. At the end of the weekend, each team submitted a video edit for a fan-sourced vote. The winning team will receive prize money for their shop/organization of choice.