OCEAN CITY – The Dew Tour is proposed to hit Ocean City the last weekend in June this summer, but its official date approval was postponed this week due to snow.
The date approval was slated to come before the Mayor and Council at its Monday legislative session, which had to be cancelled as a result of the winter storm.
The private event approval request was to be presented to the Mayor and City Council by Chris Prybylo of Alli Sports, which is a division of NBC Sports Group, who was to request Thursday-Sunday, June 26-29, for Dew Tour to take place in Ocean City in 2014.
The Dew Tour is an extreme sports event that last year consisted of three marquee events in distinct beach, city and mountain locales, featuring summer sports of skateboarding and BMX, with additional competitions of surf and freestyle motocross, as well as snowboard and freeskiing featured at the winter event.
The Dew Tour events are premium action sports and lifestyle festivals combining the best in action sports competitions along with the Dew Tour Experience and live music performances.
The Dew Tour is broadcast live on NBC and NBC Sports Network and streamed live on dewtour.com. The Dew Tour is also distributed on Universal HD, and internationally on Eurosport, Extreme Channel, Rogers Sports Network, TVA and Globosat.
This will be the fourth year the Dew Tour will hold its beach event in Ocean City. In past years, Ocean City has been the tour’s first stop.
Depending on when Dew Tour officials can reschedule to come before the council, discussion over the proposed dates will take place, which could be as soon as the next Mayor and City Council meeting scheduled for Tuesday at 1 p.m.
Dew Tour representatives confirmed this week final dates on when the big event will hit Ocean City this summer have not yet been finalized but announcements, such as the dates and other facts on what the event will entail this year will be made in the weeks to follow.
The Town of Ocean City and Alli staff will start event planning in early April, including the impact to the town and the expectations of both the town and Alli Sports. A draft Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) will then be created distinguishing responsibilities of both parties.
This year’s application includes a cost to the city of about $45,000, which has diminished over the years. In 2012, the cost to the town was about $97,000. However, the Dew Tour returns the favor by resulting in positive economic impact from lodging, food beverage, recreation and other incidental expenditures related to the event. Dew Tour in Ocean City breaks record attendance numbers every year in the amount of visitors the event draws to the resort.
The dates to hold Dew Tour 2104 was proposed as early as last June during a Tourism Commission meeting while the event was preparing to take place last summer.
Prybylo proposed for Dew Tour 2014 in Ocean City to occur Thursday-Sunday, June 26-29. However, with the breakdown of the Dew Tour usually taking about a week, staff was concerned over the interference with the 4th of July Fireworks downtown.
The commission was in consensus to further investigate, along with the Fire Marshal’s office and Dew Tour officials, on the time frame and if the Dew Tour site will infringe on the safety regulations associated with the fireworks before moving forward in accepting the proposed dates. When the Dew Tour took place last summer, June 20-23, it had almost two weeks to break down before the 4th of July fireworks.