The 25th annual Noosa Festival of Surfing, hosted by the Noosa Malibu Club, will be held from March 5 to 12, 2016, with a record number of competitors and spectators expected to arrive from around the world for this special anniversary edition of the “8 days of pure stoke”. Apps for surfers brings you all the best surfing app found in the App Store for iOS devices.
With more than 30 divisions catering for all kinds of surfing, including longboard, shortboard, finless, stand up paddle boards, dog surfing and body surfing, and ages from under 15 to over 70, the festival has become one of the most popular events on the global surfing calendar. In addition to the perfect, peeling waves of First Point, the festival offers a unique entertainment “village” right on the sand in front of the break, with licensed bar and food franchises, live music and movies nightly, and a surf expo featuring the latest in surfboards and surfwear.
Festival organisers have already been swamped with competitor entry and booking enquiries, many the result of the Seven Network’s screening of the festival documentary, 8 Days Of Pure Stoke, in April, and with Qantas scheduling the film on its inflight entertainment programming from July 1 to December 31, awareness of this unique event is expected to be at an all-time high.
In recent years, festival competitors have averaged more than 40 percent from overseas and interstate, with average length of stay more than one week, injecting a huge amount of revenue into the regional economy in a traditionally quiet time. This is one of the compelling reasons that Tourism and Events Queensland (TEQ) and Tourism Noosa have wholeheartedly thrown their support behind the world’s biggest surfing event. TEQ last month announced $150,000 in funding over the next three years, the biggest single contribution to a Sunshine Coast event.
Festival director Sam Smith said that early indications were that 2016 would see the biggest and best festival ever. “There is a limit to how many competitors we can take while giving everyone the opportunity to surf our perfect waves over a couple of heats, but the festival has been growing around our competitor base, with more people coming as spectators because they know they can catch plenty of waves on the outer bays, then come and watch their heroes in action while sipping a cold beer in the beach bar. There are a lot of surfers around the world who think that life doesn’t get much better than that, and we’re seeing an increasing number of visits from major surfing clubs, like Windansea and San Onofre in California, where 20 people might come but only half will compete.”
Sam said she was delighted with the level of support that the festival receives from TEQ and Tourism Noosa, and also from Sunshine Coast Destination Limited, who funded the documentary production. “I think the funding bodies realise that we have been doing this a long time now, that we don’t try to grow too fast and run out of money, that we continuously reinvent ourselves so as not to appear stale, and that we are innovative marketers. Our management team is small, but it includes seasoned event management professionals and some of the most respected names in surfing, including contest director Alan Atkins and business development manager Phil Jarratt. And, of course, it doesn’t hurt that legendary world champion surfer Layne Beachley is our tireless ambassador, promoting Noosa wherever she goes.”
The 2016 Noosa Festival of Surfing will open for on-line entries in amateur and specialty divisions on July 1.