Wintersports
Snowboarding
Red Bull Heavy Metal returns in 2026 bigger and bolder
A history lesson on one of the most revolutionary events in modern street snowboarding and how expanded qualifiers will elevate emerging talent.
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Red Bull Heavy Metal, hailed as one of the most influential events in modern street snowboarding, is making its triumphant return in 2026 with an expanded format and a renewed focus on showcasing the sport’s most progressive riders. Building on the success of its 2025 debut at Boston City Hall Plaza, the 2026 iteration promises to elevate the event with two regional qualifiers leading up to the highly anticipated main event in downtown Boston.
With an unwavering commitment to real street features and the raw creativity that defines snowboarding, Red Bull Heavy Metal 2026 will feature three unique riding zones, offering fans an electrifying experience while pushing the limits of the sport. Whether you're in the heart of Boston or at one of the qualifiers in Minneapolis or Pittsburgh, the stage is set for an unforgettable season of snowboarding action.
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The road to Boston: Red Bull Heavy Metal 2026 schedule
- Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota
- Date: January 17, 2026
- Location: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
- Date: January 31, 2026
- Location: Boston, Massachusetts
- Date: February 21, 2026
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A brief history of snowboarding
From the monumental moment that the base of a snowboard touched the cold, hard steel of a handrail, snowboarding culture was forever changed. Though it’s arguable and debatable as to when that moment actually took place, it can be traced back to the early ‘90s, and since then, the idea of how to ride a snowboard could not be put in any specific box. It opened our eyes and allowed us to view snowboarding as something that anyone can do, any specific way they want to do it.
There are varying opinions on the origins of snowboarding. Being the last of the Big Three of boardsports as far as inception, it’s arguable to some that snowboarding is born from surfing. Likewise, other audiences and pundits alike would argue that snowboarding’s roots come from skateboarding. To answer that is a moot point because, truth is, it was born from both.
While Jake Burton Carpenter introduced the sport of snowboarding to a global audience, it was Tom Sims who invented the snowboarding lifestyle. Two men with different approaches and different visions of what snowboarding is, and that dichotomy helped birth what this culture has become. The original Burton team was pivotal in bringing snowboarding to the masses, while the original Sims team was most influential in showing the world what being a snowboarder should look, feel and sound like. Together, through these two high-profile teams, snowboarding became both a sport and a culture.
Tom Sims (right) and Jake Burton
© Bud Fawcett
As snowboarding developed, it became clear that there were two avenues to being considered a professional. You could either compete or you could film. In the early ‘90s, racing a halfpipe was taking off on the east coast and the Burton team was the epitome of that, with riders like Andy Coghlan, Craig Kelly, Jeff Brushie and other Burton team royalty. Simultaneously on the west coast, riders like Terry Kidwell, Shaun Palmer and Noah Salasnek were redefining freestyle snowboarding in a non-competitive arena, choosing to film their tricks, edit them to music and produce what is now known as a video part. Obviously, there was crossover in these worlds, however, these different approaches appealed to different people and the modern age of snowboarding took off.
But then in 1992, a man by the name of Tim Pogue left Burton and started a company called RIDE Snowboards, and they created a team like never before. Russell Winfield, Jason Ford, Dale Rehberg, Circe Wallace, Roan Rogers and Jake Blattner would re-write the rulebook on what snowboarding was and is, and they did it by taking a vastly different approach to both the Burton and the Sims model. They did it by traveling together in a van—as a true team—and by finding new arenas to evolve freestyle snowboarding. They did it by riding handrails.
Rail riding wasn’t common in the early ‘90s, but the original RIDE team wasn’t intended to mimic snowboard teams. Rather, they were put together to mirror skate teams, and with that ideology came the concept of taking snowboarding off the resort and into the streets. Rehberg, Ford, Circe, Russell, Blattner and Roan began to look at the handrails leading to the base lodge as much as they were looking at the mountain itself, and almost instantaneously, another branch in the tree of snowboard evolution started to grow. With one of snowboarding’s most legendary cinematographers behind the lens documenting this early rail riding action, Mike “Mack Dawg” McEntyre, this new style of snowboarding went out to a core audience that gobbled it up and couldn’t get enough, in films like Toy Soldiers and The Hard, The Hungry and the Homeless. Before the industry knew what hit them, the modern day rail rider was born.
Fast forward to the late ‘90s and early 2000s and along came two riders who would forever change the industry in JP Walker and Jeremy Jones. As members of snowboarding’s new superteam, Forum, JP and Jeremy unlocked new levels of street riding and took it to the masses like no one ever had before. Through films like True Life, The Resistance and Shakedown, these two prodigies from the suburbs of Salt Lake City were focusing the majority of their time in street environments and seeking out new and never-been-done rails. Rainbow rails, kink rails, soccer goals, wallrides and any and everything that lie in their path, and because of their skillset and effort, street riding exploded and with it came a new roster of professional snowboarders that focused as much of their time on steel in the streets as they did powder on-piste.
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A look back at moments from past Red Bull Heavy Metal events
JP Walker - Backside 505
© www.andersneuman.com
Red Bull Heavy Metal in Portland, Oregon
© Trevor Graves / Red Bull Content Pool
Red Bull Heavy Metal
© Trevor Graves / Red Bull Content Pool
In 2002, the first-ever Red Bull Heavy Metal was introduced to the snowboarding vernacular. In years prior, rail jams were becoming increasingly popular, however, they were mostly pre-fabricated terrain park rails and boxes with scaffolding drop-ins. Red Bull Heavy Metal was the anti-rail jam in that it would be held in the actual streets just north of Buffalo, New York at Niagara Falls on video part-worthy spots featuring video part-worthy tricks. The setup was a combination of hubbas, creepers and rails and the riders invited to battle it out was a who’s who of modern-day street riding talent. Legends like Justin Hebbel, Zach Leach, Scotty Arnold, Micah McGinnity, Ali Goulet, Seth Huot, Chris Demolski, Nate Bozung, Shane Flood, Jordan Mendenhall, Bjorn Leines, Eddie Wall and judges Joel Mahaffey and the late, great J2 put on a show for the ages and changed the trajectory of competitive street riding forever. Nate Bozung, Scotty Arnold and Seth Huot all walked away with $10,000 and their names etched in the canon of snowboard history forever, and Red Bull Heavy Metal changed locations the following year.
Previous Red Bull Heavy Metal winners
Year two of Red Bull Heavy Metal went down in Portland, Oregon at the iconic downtown Pioneer Place. Similar to Niagara Falls, it was a plaza-style area made entirely of brick, but rails had to be brought in for the riders to session. Downbars, kinks and other obstacles were temporarily placed in the plaza for the riders to session, and session they did. Thousands of observers piled into Pioneer Place to watch some of the best riders in the world tear the course apart in downtown Portland. Kyle Clancy, Zach Leach, Hana Beaman, Wyatt Caldwell, Scotty Arnold, Danny Kass, Simon Chamberlain, Chris Engelsman, TJ Schneider and Bjorn Leines had the crowd screaming, but it was none other than the legendary Travis Parker who stole the show, while riding in a full football uniform (pads, helmet and all) and providing the most memorable moments from the sophomore year of Red Bull Heavy Metal. The day’s winner was Kyle Clancy, who took home the big win, but even though the event lit the snowboard world ablaze, it was time for a bit of a break. The following year, the event headed to Salt Lake City at the Delta Center (now called Vivint Smart Home Arena), but the luster was fading as street riding’s popularity skyrocketed and it was time for a reinvention of Red Bull Heavy Metal. However, that wouldn’t come to fruition two winters ago, when the iconic event resurfaced in northern Minnesota for all the world to witness once again.
Cascade Park, sitting perched atop the small city of Duluth, Minnesota was the site of the 2022 Red Bull Heavy Metal, and by utilizing Event Director and Minnesota street riding royalty Joe Sexton, the course was a perfect culmination of natural features that Cascade Park was already known for in the street snowboarding scene. Forty of the world’s best street riders descended on Duluth for a session a decade in the making. Zeb Powell, Benny Milam, Maggie Leon, Miles Fallon, Rob Roethler, Alexis Roland, Nora Beck, Blake Lamb, Draydon Gardner, Ben Bilodeau, Zak Hale, Savannah Shinske, Danyale Patterson, Alexis Roland, Ryan Paul, Grace Warner, and many more went at it for an entire day, sessioning one of the heaviest setups the world has ever seen and created more content than anyone could ever consume in a day that redefined what rail jams were, are and should be. At the day’s end, it was Benny Milam and Maggie Leon who took the win with Marty Vachon and Zeb Powell rounding out the podium for the guys and Jaylen Hanson and Lexi Roland taking second and third for the gals.
Red Bull Heavy Metal 2022 in Duluth, Minnesota
© Emily Tidwell / Red Bull Content Pool
Detroit’s Hart Plaza has been a place that snowboarders pilgrimage to in the colder months thanks to the endless cement ledges and creeper rails. This made Detroit the perfect location to follow up Cascade Park for the 2023 Red Bull Heavy Metal. On event day, this iconic location (normally a realm of stealthy film crews and DIY’ers) transformed into a bustling arena filled with spectators. Egan Wint claimed the women's crown, while Pat Fava emerged victorious on the men's side.
Luke Winkelmann hits a jump during Red Bull Heavy Metal 2023 in Detroit
© Joe Gall / Red Bull Content Pool
The 2024 Red Bull Heavy Metal in St. Paul brought street snowboarding to Minnesota's state capitol with top riders in front of thousands of fans. The event featured three unique zones: a 40-foot, two-story gap from the terrace to the lawn below, a set of 25-foot down rails, and a huge 60-foot down-flat-down pushing riders to showcase their technical prowess and creativity. Standout moments included jaw-dropping tricks from heavy hitters like North Carolina's Luke Winkelmann, Quebec's Sebastien Toutant, and hometown boarder and winner, Benny Milam.
Grace Warner at Red Bull Heavy Metal 2024 in Saint Paul, Minnesota
© Mark Clavin / Red Bull Content Pool
The 2025 Red Bull Heavy Metal in Boston marked a groundbreaking debut at City Hall Plaza, redefining urban snowboarding with its innovative setup and electric atmosphere. Thousands of fans gathered to witness riders push the limits across three distinct zones—a 40 ft. down bar and a stair set, a jump and wall ride feature, and a massive stair set—each designed to challenge even the most experienced snowboarders. Benny Milam had a huge bag of tricks and Jessica Perlmutter landed the sweetest flip of the day which led to their victories. The event celebrated the vibrant snowboarding community of the Northeast and set a new standard for street snowboarding competitions.
Red Bull Heavy Metal 2025 in Boston, Massachusetts
© Peter Cirilli / Red Bull Content Pool
Red Bull Heavy Metal’s return comes at a time when street snowboarding has evolved into incomprehensible progression. The idea that riding in the streets at this level from where it once began is hard to fathom, but it’s stronger than ever and the sky is the limit on where it can go from here. Evolution and change are constant in the snowboarding world, and now, Red Bull Heavy Metal comes back this winter bigger and better with qualifying stops in Pittsburgh and Minneapolis that will each send one male and one female rider to the finale in Boston. The level will be upped, the evolution will carry on, and a new generation of riders will be introduced to the big stage.
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