Six Years In, the Des Moines Streetstyle Open Is Turning Skateboarding Into a Downtown Draw

The event is put on by Skate DSM, a local nonprofit built around access, community and culture in skateboarding. Skate DSM's home base is Lauridsen Skatepark, but the Streetstyle Open was built to go beyond the park's walls. Modeled after Copenhagen's famous street skating festival, it uses real spots around the city, places local skaters already ride every day, rather than building a temporary course from scratch. Past years have brought contests to the State Capitol, Principal Park, the Papajohn Sculpture Park and Cowles Commons, along with stair sets, rails and flat gaps scattered through Downtown DSM. This year, opening night lands at Principal Park (home of the Iowa Cubs!), with programming also taking place at other locations around Downtown before the weekend wraps up at Lauridsen Skatepark.

The Des Moines Streetstyle Open Impact

For a city trying to build its reputation as a place where things happen, that matters. The Streetstyle Open generates nearly $150,000 in direct economic activity for the region each year, money spent on hotels, restaurants and local businesses by out-of-town visitors who came for the skating and stayed for the city. It's also one of the few events in Greater Des Moines (DSM) that pulls a genuinely international crowd. Past competitors have come from North and South America, Europe and Asia, including Olympians and two Thrasher Magazine Skaters of the Year, which is roughly the sport's equivalent of an MVP award.

This year the event also hosts the Boardr Series National Championship, the finale of a nine-stop national contest series that includes stops from South Carolina to Oregon. Greater Des Moines is the closing event on that circuit, which puts the city in front of a national skate audience that doesn't usually have a reason to think about Iowa at all.

None of this happens by accident. Getting permits to skate stair sets and public plazas Downtown, coordinating with property owners and building a three-day event around real urban terrain takes a level of city cooperation that a lot of festivals never have to think about. It also takes sponsors willing to back something a little unconventional. Companies like Red Bull, Kwik Star and Holmes Murphy and Associations have stepped up as partners along with Polk County and Catch Des Moines and of course The Partnership. That support is part of wwhat lets the event stay largely free to attend and cheap to enter, keeping it open to families, first-time spectators and skaters.

The Streetstyle Open isn't just a weekend event, either. It connects to Skate DSM's year-round work with young people in the community, including free equipment giveaways and after-school skate clubs running in schools across Polk and Dallas Counties. Skateboarding has a reputation, fair or not, for being closed off or intimidating to outsiders. Skate DSM has built its whole model around the opposite idea: skating should be something any kid in DSM can pick up, and any resident can watch and enjoy, whether they've ever stepped on a board or not.

For a city always looking for ways to stand out, the Streetstyle Open offers something genuinely hard to manufacture: an authentic, homegrown event that pulls international attention to DSM's own streets, plazas and skate scene. Six years in, it's proof that some of the city's most interesting growth is happening at street level, sometimes literally.

The Des Moines Streetstyle Open runs Sept. 24 to 26, 2026, at Principal Park and Lauridsen Skatepark. More information is available at SkateDSM.org.

Keep up with the momentum that's happening in and around Greater Des Moines (DSM) when you subscribe to one or all of the Greater Des Moines Partnership's newsletters — they're packed with the latest news, highlighting everything from upcoming events to development projects to policy updates. Join the mailing list to connect with The Partnership and help amplify stories from around the region.