EXCLUSIVE: Red Bull Heavy Metal coats City Hall Plaza in fresh powder ahead of snowboarding competition
150 tons of snow were unloaded onto City Hall Plaza Tuesday night to convert the city’s stoic epicenter into a premier extreme winter sports venue perfect for Saturday’s Red Bull Heavy Metal Finals.
“It’s just the perfect urban setting,” said FrankieBird Event Producer Oren Tanzer. “It’s got everything that we need, incredible rails, the spectator experience is incredible, and the history right here in the heart of Boston. It’s the most incredible venue for something like this.”
The snow trucks arrived at New Hampshire’s Loon Mountain Resort early Tuesday evening. 40 yards of the same artificial snow used on the mountain’s trails were loaded onto each of the eight trucks and shipped up to Boston .
“Loon Mountain is a great partner of ours. We’ve been planning this with them for months, and they’ve been stockpiling this snow special for us,” he said. “The snow that’s made at the resort is a little bit different than the snow that just falls out of the sky. It’s a little dense.”
Due to Boston’s recent (and upcoming) stints of extreme weather, less snow had to be imported than in previous years. Some of the plaza’s snowbanks will be worked into the track, with the more durable artificial variety used to top off the three courses.
“If we get a little bit of snow, I always joke around that it’s called snowboarding. So we don’t mind if a little bit of snow falls from the sky,” he said.
Over the next few days, the snow will be molded into the event’s three courses – a 40- foot downbar and stair set, a jump and wall ride feature, and a massive stair set built out of the infamous flight facing Congress St. – all built to challenge even the most experienced snowboarders in an event promised to be bigger and bolder than any before.
Designing and permitting action-packed courses like these is FrankieBird’s bread and butter. They work with F1 and handle “whatever Red Bull needs that’s difficult, hard, and normally not done before,” Tanzer explained – including Red Bull’s 2025 Grand Canyon Skydive.
Tanzer shared that production on this year’s event began shortly after the conclusion of the 2025 finals. FrankieBird secured permits, networked with vendors, and collaborated with 2020 Winter X Games Gold Medalist Zeb Powell to repurpose civic space for the most progressive rail-riding snowboarding contest in the world.
“We have 15 different permits just for the city here, which allows us to close Congress Street on Saturday, which allows us to work in the plaza to get all of these bits and pieces together,” he said.
Tanzer added that the highlight of the event is the Boston crowds. “There was such an amazing energy that I haven’t felt in a very long time at an event. People were just really excited,” he said. “And then snowboarding, of course, is what we’re all here for. This is a super heavy rail that goes down here onto Congress Street, so to see what the guys and girls are doing on that rail is insane.”
Powell will be joined by Pittsburgh qualifier winners Liam Johnson and Emmaus Rich, 2026 U.S. Olympic Snowboarder Jess Perlmutter, and other athletes to decide one champion from the male and female divisions. The competition will take place Saturday, February 21, from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. at City Hall Plaza.
