Unique Surf Swap Meet at Festival

Sunday, October 23 at Wategos Beach, 8.00 am (Board registrations at 7am)

Question. What is noisier than the ruckus caused by a fox in a chicken coop? That’s easy. A bunch of surfers talking about surfboard designs. Gather a bunch of surfers together, throw in a whole lot of different surfboards and suddenly the decibel level jumps. Mysterious sounding topics such as plan shape, rocker, fin systems, channels, concaves, rails and tail designs are discussed as surfboards are stroked, observed from all angles, poked, pushed and prodded.

The organisers of the Byron Bay Surf Festival are giving surfers the opportunity to feed their obsession for surfboard design and ownership with their unique “Swap Meet” event to be staged on Sunday, October 23 at Wategos Beach as part of their three day festival. While a swag of the region’s best board shapers and designers have been invited to bring along a selection of their newest boards (and board shaping ideas) to display, local surfers are also invited to bring along surfboards (new or old) that they might wish to swap or sell. Hopefully oodles of surfboards of all shapes, sizes, ages and designs will fill the grassy spaces behind the beach to provide local surfers with hours of inspecting, discussing, buying or swapping opportunities. That’s right. Money does not even have to change hands! Surfers may simply trade one board for another if they want to transform their surfing experience and something exotic takes their fancy.

Surfers and surfboard collectors must not miss this opportunity to find a bargain, extend their quiver or simply learn a lot about how and why board designs work or don’t work by discussing surfboards with experts and innovators. Attendance at the “Swap Meet” is absolutely free. If you wish to bring a board along to display, swap or sell a small registration fee of $5.00 per board applies. Hosted by Byron bay Malibu Club and the Byron Bay Surf Festival, the fun starts at 8.00 am (Board registrations at 7am) at Wategos and will continue until around midday.

Some exciting board shapers and designers attending will be Tom Wegener, Sage and Paul Joske (Valla Boards), Simon Jones (Morning of the Earth and MP Boards), Thomas Bexon (Thomas Boards) and Gary Burden (Troll and Astro Boards).

The surf swap meet is all part of the weekend of Surf Culture Now in Byron Bay Oct 21-23rd. Check out the website to see the full program of surf inspired and mostly free events!

www.byronbaysurffestival.com