My experience of being part of an audience happened about 2 months ago when my local skatepark held a skate demo which featured the Volcom skate team which included some of the best professional skateboarders in the world. I went to the event and there were around 50 other people. I was engaged the entire time watching the skateboarding and it made me feel inspired and amazed at the skill level of the skaters. Prior to the Volcom skate team appearing in their van there were lots of kids skating around the skatepark doing their own things. As soon as the team arrived without everyone being told everybody cleared the park and waited for the pros to come out. It was evident that everyone knew that they needed their space in the skatepark to do their tricks without having to worry about other people. 

Throughout the demo there were a few disruptions caused by small kids throwing toys and other objects onto the skatepark which caused a couple of the professionals to bail out of their tricks to avoid the object which slightly ruined the experience of watching them skate. 

The way the skate demo was produced with the main ambition to attract as many people as possible to make it a bigger and successful event. The largest target audience group was young kids aged around 7 – 12 and their parents. This was identified by the Volcom skate team in which they selected the best group of skaters from their team to appeal to the younger kids and their parents. The skaters that are more skilled in performing big airs and high risks stunts give off more of a wow factor and are seemingly more impressive and appealing more to the younger generation who assume that high risk means higher skill. Having followed skateboarding for a long time myself I watch and critique skaters in a much different way than what would have originally been intended by the Volcom skate team. When watching skateboarding I look more for the technique and the style of the way tricks are performed over how risky the trick is. This is a great example of the idea from the ministry of education in NZ that, ‘Audiences have a complex relationship with the product they consume’, and also that ‘Media producers intend audiences to read their product in a certain way, but in actual fact everyone enjoys a product differently due to the individual’s background and lifestyle’.