Candleman snowboards
New Zealand's original snowboard brand
Candleman is the only original New Zealand snowboard brand still shredding the slopes of Kiwi wonderland. Yes, there have been quite a few local brands over the years and it all kicked off in the 90s, when snowboarding became what it is today following the widespread adoption of steel edges.
Launched circa 1995, Candleman was the smaller and niftier brand produced at Tsunami manufacturing facility. By that time, Tsunami had built their cred by being a contract manufacturer for David Partridge’s Snostix, a true pioneer in New Zealand’s snowboard industry. Nick Williams, who ran Tsunami, deserves a whole page of his own. He was involved in countless ventures, from building sets for The Lord of the Rings to co-creating Lahar, a powerful stomp landed right in the middle of global downhill mountain biking community.
Designed to cater to the younger demographic, Candleman made snowboarding affordable for a generation of Kiwi kids. Candleman snowboard models were traditionally named after the graphics. Well, there was only one model: a directional twin freeride unit with 4 x 4 binding mounting pattern, available in different sizes. Each size had its own graphic, and was known by its look.
The good old days
Candleman community
Candleman Snowboards design competition was a big deal. The number of responses it generated was truly humbling. There were all kinds, with some real bangers shamefully never making it into production. The shotgun wielding Candleman was also designed by a kid and we have been hunting butterflies ever since.
Snowboards offer a unique canvas for creativity. Long, just wide enough, challenging artists to discard unnecessary detail and focus their idea to achieve visual impact or deliver a message. And kids managed it beautifully.
In this poster one design went into production. The brick dropping out of a plane and a smashed TV was adopted to become Kinetic, except the brick was moved from the center to the tip to fit on one screen. Unfortunately, not all designs could be adopted due to the limitations of screen printing process.
Candle how..?
Candleman’s scrappiness was reflected in its design. Nick Williams, the then boss of Tsunami and the creator of Candleman, had visited a few snowboard factories, including Burton and K2. He adopted the best industry practices, discarded the worst and then elaborated.
To make Candlemans cheaper to manufacture, a running length only edge was tested and adopted. Many brands tried a similar idea, with partial tip and tail wrap edges, but Candleman went full minimalist with it. This saved quite a bit of labour per unit and never caused any functional issues.
Wood is the superior core material and Candleman always advertised itself as a wood cored snowboard. The cheeky part was that, just like the edges, the wood core was running length only too. The tip and the tail were made of abs plastic filler, which interlocked with the core, providing a structurally sound transition. This design made the shaping of the cores easier, once again saving some labour hours.
This did not make Candleman a worse board though. In fact, there were advantages to this design. Arguably, without the full edge wrap, the tips of a Candleman were more vulnerable to collision damage. However, when damaged, they were also easier to repair. You simply sanded off the damaged part, or just rocked the gnarled tip. Because the tip was all plastic, there was no danger of moisture reaching the core.
The biggest advantage Candleman had was that it was piggibacking on Tsunami’s high performance pedigree. Candlemans were made in a faster way, but not in a cheaper way when it came to material choices. Cores were made out of clear New Zealand pine. Performance plastics came from Europe, and so did the edges. Triaxial fiberglass and wet layup methods were used, and most importantly, Candleman utilized the same high performance rubber toughened lamination resin specifically developed for Nick and his layup process.
Fresh fire
As the new millennium rolled in, local manufacturers around the world increasingly came under pressure from cheaper products made offshore. Tsunami and Nick got busy making waveskis, and Candleman skipped a season. By then, it sorely needed a revamp.
It got one at the hands of Dan Pawlyk, a Canadian marketing executive who had settled in New Zealand after following a girl. Didn’t we all…
Butterflies could finally stop dodging buckshot—Candleman pivoted toward the premium market with a new look and manufacturing philosophy. The brand now offered custom graphics. The edges began creeping up around the tip and tail. Flex could be dialled in. Sintered and racing graphite-infused bases were added as options. Up was the only way to go, and Candleman clenched its cheeks for the long ride on the nutcracker.
The new logo was created by an intern. The inspiration for it came from the Southern Cross. Modern and sharp, the snowflake design is defiantly unorthodox—it refuses to be boxed in, literally. It cannot be enclosed in a square or a circle, and that’s the point. It reflects the spirit of Candleman: uncompromising, rooted in craftsmanship, and loyal to an era when product came before profit—before planned obsolescence was even a thing.
Design comp goes tertiary
In 2009, Candleman revived its snowboard graphics design competition—this time targeting tertiary students. Unlike in the previous millennium, when winners were chosen by the crew, the 2009 designs were decided entirely by public vote.
The comeback year’s voting was memorable for one major reason: the automated registration system broke. Every single voting link had to be emailed manually. For a whole week, we logged registration details into an Excel sheet, checked for duplicates by hand, sent out unique links one by one, and fielded a steady stream of messages from impatient voters wondering where their link was. It was 24/7 chaos. Thank god tertiary students and their friends sleep in late.
The first year’s winners were Mess and Skadi, and they set the bar stupidly high. Skadi was a slick fusion of hand-drawn grit and digital polish by Carl Van Den Boom from Lincoln Uni. Mess lived up to its name in the best way—a beautifully chaotic collage of raster elements whipped up by Rosanna Harris from Otago.
The brutal part of any design comp? Someone’s gotta lose. And yeah—it stings. People throw themselves into this stuff, no matter their skill level, hoping their art gets to ride the slopes. With a bit more budget, we might’ve said “screw it” and printed them all, even as one-offs. Maybe one day…
The C word
In 2011, Candleman decided to try China. It worked for ZURU—why wouldn’t it work for us?
The idea was to set up a satellite workshop to serve the global custom market. The New Zealand factory would still handle NZ and Australia. Simple, right?
The numbers were wild. Shipping a snowboard from New Zealand to Asia cost $200. From China to anywhere in the world? Max $80. Even shipping from China to New Zealand cost just $50. Go figure.
It was an adventure, equal parts thrilling and maddening. We opened a local store in Beijing, a proper Kiwi sanctuary tucked near the South 3rd Ring Road. But we couldn’t run both factories at once. Not a chance. For a while, Beijing covered our New Zealand orders.
Oddly enough, the hardest part wasn’t culture or quality – it was finding people. The talent was all down south, in China’s manufacturing heartland. But relocating there meant drifting further from everything Candleman stood for. Moving to China was a tough call. It was an easy decision to leave.
Elon Musk should’ve asked us first when he decided to set up a Tesla factory in China. Could’ve saved himself a few headlines.
The locals
These days, Candleman snowboards are made in Nelson, New Zealand. We still make our own pine cores and do wet layups by hand, though a CNC robot now handles much of the work we used to do with patterns.
Every Candleman features a full wood core and full edge wrap. We offer multiple models, a wide range of sizes, and nearly unlimited customization options. And while a truly budget snowboard can no longer be made in New Zealand, an excellent one can be.
We’ve leveraged decades of experience, taken on the hard stuff, and stuck with the high-performance, rubber-toughened lamination resin developed specifically for Nick and his layup process. Our goal is to create perfect, bespoke snowboards—boards that ride hard for years and still deserve a place on your wall as a piece of functional industrial art.
Bindings are next. Get on board. The nutcracker is only halfway there…
