Project Pabst, a new music festival in Portland’s South Waterfront headlined by local heroes like Modest Mouse and Stephen Malkmus, is bringing progressive transport to new heights this month.
Like many large events popular among discerning Portlanders, it’ll offer a free bike valet service. Unlike any we’d ever heard of, it’ll also offer a free skateboard valet.
In an email response to our query, a Project Pabst organizer explained that the festival simply wants to provide “convenient service for Portland skateboarders.”
Skateboard valets will store the vehicles in an on-site tent, with bikes.
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When the Project Pabst festival lineup was announced in July, The Oregonian called it “the most Portland festival ever.” Pabst Blue Ribbon, the sponsoring beer, is pitching it as a thank-you to Portland, the city whose young people led the working-class drink’s rebirth over the last 13 years to become a billion-dollar brand.
Portland, called “maybe the most skateboard-friendly town in America” by the Wall Street Journal, is the only major U.S. city that has legalized skateboards as on-street vehicles, uses wayfinding signs to designate skateboard routes and has an organized skateboard transportation advocacy group.
Skateboard valet service, though, isn’t quite new. It’s apparently already been introduced at Seattle’s signature Bumbershoot festival … for $5. Which also seems fitting.
Project Pabst is Sept. 26-28 in the historic Zidell shipyards, between the Tillikum Crossing and Ross Island Bridge. Admission is $35 per day; delightfully affordable, just like human-powered transportation and a certain brand of crisp, watery beer.