NEWCASTLE, New South Wales, Australia (Wednesday, September 11, 2024) - The World Surf League (WSL) is excited to announce Newcastle SURFEST will be the first event of the 2025 WSL Challenger Series, thanks to a new partnership between the WSL, City of Newcastle, and the Port of Newcastle. Over 120 of the world's best up-and-coming surfers will descend on the iconic surf break of Merewether in Newcastle as they look to qualify for the 2026 Championship Tour (CT).
Lord Mayor Nuatali Nelmes said the City of Newcastle has a proud history of supporting surfing in the region.
"City of Newcastle has been a sponsor of Surfest for almost 40 years and also helped to attract the Rip Curl Newcastle Cup to the city in 2021," Cr Nelmes said. "That event showcased Newcastle to a global audience of more than 10 million people and injected an estimated $15 million into our economy, even without the international tourists who couldn't attend because of the pandemic.
"Since then, surfing has only grown in popularity. In 2023, the 16 WSL events attracted more than 120 million television viewers globally, and social media engagement surpassed 500 million interactions across various platforms. Adding Surfest to the Challenger Series for 2025 will provide substantial economic, cultural, and tourism benefits to Newcastle and the wider Hunter region."
Mayor Nuatali Nelmes, WSL APAC President Andrew Stark with surfers Ryan Callinan, Jackson Baker, Philippa Anderson and other during the SURFEST 2025 Announcement at Merewether Beach. - WSL / Tom Bennett
Newcastle SURFEST is one of the most exciting fixtures as a longstanding, historic competition in this region's calendar. Over the years, it has seen some of the sport's biggest names hoist the Mark Richards Trophy, including Kelly Slater (USA), Stephanie Gilmore (AUS), Mick Fanning (AUS), Sally Fitzgibbons (AUS), and Tom Curren (AUS), to name a few. After almost 40 years of running, the 2025 competition will be the biggest international field the event has hosted since March 2020.
"The WSL is extremely excited to see such a historic event return to the world stage as a Challenger Series event in 2025," said WSL APAC President Andrew Stark. "The sport's biggest names have competed at this event for almost four decades, and the continued success of Newcastle SURFEST is a testament to the passion of the local surf community. We can't wait to see the world's best come back to Newcastle and battle it out for the Mark Richards Trophy once again. We'd like to thank Lord Mayor Nuatali Nelmes and the City of Newcastle, as well as the Port of Newcastle, for getting behind this event and bringing international professional surfing back to one of its heartlands."
CEO Craig Carmody said Port of Newcastle is proud to bring elite surfing back to Newcastle.
"This iconic Hunter event is synonymous with the city and raising the event to Challenger Series status ensures surfing in Newcastle again reaches a global audience," Mr Carmody said. "With diversity and inclusion a strategic pillar in Port of Newcastle's workforce, the support of this event, that promotes elite competition in both men's and women's fields, is in line with the Port's values, ensuring equal opportunity for all competitors."
"To have the WSL Challenger Series opening event here showcasing our beaches and the National Surfing Reserve, the home of Mark Richards, Merewether Beach, is fantastic news for Newcastle and the Hunter Region," said SURFEST Founder and Director Warren Smith. "I must thank Lord Mayor Nuatali Nelmes and the City of Newcastle Council, the Port of Newcastle and all our event partners for the support to make this happen. I would also like to thank the WSL, especially the WSL APAC President Andrew Stark, for having the confidence in Surfest and Newcastle to present the Challenger Series event as a part of Surfest 2025. We are all so excited about the Challenger Series coming to Merewether Beach and look forward to welcoming all the international competitors to Newcastle."
In its nearly forty years of competition, only two Novacasrtians have ever won SURFEST, Philippa Anderson in 2009 and Jackson Baker in 2022. Both surfers are currently on the Challenger Series and will look to use their home event to springboard their 2025 qualification campaign. Baker continues to recover from a knee injury and has his sights set on the 2026 Championship Tour.
"It's super exciting to finally have Surfest back on the world stage, and to have a Challenger Series event here at home in Merewether is so epic," Baker said. "It's super cool for the upcoming groms in the area and local kids to have the internationals coming back to town for such a prestigious event. It is a dream come true, not for myself but for the local community. Even more exciting is that I've got the opportunity to win a Challenger Series event at my home beach that I've surfed my whole life with all my family and friends there."
"I'm absolutely thrilled to hear that Newcastle will be hosting a CS event," Anderson said. "The history of surf events in Newcastle is one of a kind. From the age of 12, I watched Surfest at Newcastle Beach, then when it moved over to Merewether, where I started to compete a few years later. As an experienced surfer now looking back and how much those events meant to a young girl who had dreams to be a professional surfer. It's events like this that inspire a kid with a dream. All the young Merewether and Newcastle kids aspire to follow in the footsteps of MR Ryan, Morgan, and Jacko. They'll get to free surf, rub shoulders and watch the world's best female and male surfers. There's just nothing that can compare to that."
The Newcastle SURFEST Challenger Series event will run from June 1 - 8, 2025. The entire 2025 Challenger Series schedule will be released later this year.