Surf Happenings

SURF HAPPENING

A NEW SURF CONTEST SERIES FOR THE YOUTH

Combining the traditional surf competition heat format with the flexibility that modern digital tools offer, Volcom Surf Happenings will provide a proper and fair platform for competing surfers to battle it out for their share of the 6000€ prize purse at the most convient location and time as agreed upon by both competitors.

Check the recap down below!

How It Works

Step 1

Registration

Registration for each competition is free, but competition slots are limited to 16 competitors in the Men’s division and 16 competitors in the Women’s division living in the contests areas (40km radius) and born after January 1st 2005.

Step 2

Heat Details

Matched competitors & their filmers agree on heat location, time, duration (depending on the conditions and their schedule) during the Round's competition widow.

Step 3

Heats Are Surfed

Competitors and their filmers meet at their agreed upon location and time and surf their heat.

Step 4

Waves Uploaded

After each heat, each competitor posts what they think is their top two waves on their Instagram feed with heat info, contest hashtag and Insta handles @volcomhappening @volcom in the caption.

Step 5

Waves Judged

Judge score competitors waves and results are uploaded to the contest platform alongside the announcement of the next round's heat match ups. Next round's heat windows begin immediately.

HOW'D IT GO ? THE RECAP

After the changes that everyone had to endure for over a year, Volcom had a strong desire to come back on the field and reconnect with the local surf communities. Setting up a fresh new competition format for the Youth isn't an easy task, and despite some hiccups, the first edition of the Volcom Surf Happenning digital contest series delivered more than expected, excitement, drama, competition stress, comradery and anticipation!

Three free contests open to the under 16 year old top surfers, got organized at the following European surf hubs: Ericeira (Portugal), Zarautz (Basque Country) and Hossegor (France). With a prize money of 1000€ plus extra prizes from our partners EQlove, Jam traction & Softboardcenter, up for grabs at each spot in the mens and womens divisions.

VSH ERICEIRA Winners – WOMEN 1^st Place Constância Rocha (1000€) – 2^nd Place Maria Salgado

VSH ERICEIRA Winners – MEN 1^st Place Francisco Ordonhas (1000€) – 2^nd Place Salvador Vala

As most "new" things, the format wasn't easy to get for some of the surfers:

First of, the entries were limited in each division (top 10 competitors according to national ranking + 6 "Volcom picks" from all entries).
Then, after one on one heats got drawn by the organization, competitors had a two weeks' time window to connect, agree on the spot and time, to surf their match up, get their best waves on camera and post on social with the contests hashtags (#VSHEriceira, #VSHZarautz and #VSHHossegor).
That is quite some responsibility and work, but the surfers, parents and coach handled it like champs after the first rounds.

But that new format allowed surfers to compete fairly (one on one timed heats) and gave them the freedom to choose the best conditions within the rounds time windows (waves, crowds, availability...), got the surfers, parents, coachs, filmers to (re)connect, and got some of the surfers extra visibility on social...

Here is some action from Hossegor!

Here below are a couple of side stories worth mentioning!!

In Hossegor there was rumors of goofy footers not wanting to agree on surfing a righthander, or solid conditions being avoided by some competitors....

Keoni Van Der Bij got dropped on during one heat by the perfect definition of a surf tourist.

Young Tya Zebrowski showed her talent during all rounds but couldn't find her rhythm in the final against Clemence Schorsch from Vieux Boucau who took the top honors.

Inigo Madina won the mens division with power turns against the young Aaron Bacon, and found a new filmer in the process!

In Zarautz some drama went down:

During a heat, one parent filming run out of battery, got saved by contest director Indar Inanue with his camera, whose battery died a moment later and couldn't document the end of the heat...

In the Men semifinals Oxel Oregi and Hans Odriozola were both in the Maldives but in two different locations and had only one chance to meet to surf their heat (in epic conditions), but couldn't document it as their camera guy lost his gear in the water! The two surfers got eliminated and Kai Odriozola got declared winner after his other semifinal victory against Marco Marin.

In the Womens, Laine Fernandez claimed victory after a disputed final against Enara Palacios.

Portuguese surfing future is bright! Ericeira's contest surfing level was pretty high.

The classic righthander pointbreaks got teared apart and contest director Gony Zubizarreta got the judges in alert after each heat got surfed.

In the Womens, Maria Salgado and Constancia Rocha were definitely the two best competitors during the rounds and met in the finals, with Constancia Rocha winning the 1000€ of the 1st place.

In the Mens divison goofyfooter Francisco Ordonhas kept posting good scores all contest long and took the win despite good competitors such as Salvador Vala, Santiago Graça, Tiago Faria or Francisco Mittermayer...