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A popular Christchurch surfing event will be scaled back to its roots this year for what is set to be the surfing competition’s sixth and final edition.
The Tuawera Longboard Classic co-founder Will Jamieson said the event had become a “beast of burden”, expanding beyond the grassroots competition it had originally intended to be.
The cost of running the event had continued to increase while sponsorships were drying up. This made trying to keep the competition affordable for the surfers and event goers increasingly difficult.
“It’s gotten harder and harder to run,” said Jamieson.
The event was started in 2021 by Sumner surfers Charlie Wise, Jack Tyro and Will Jamieson when they were all still teenagers. They wanted to create a community-focused surf festival for their friends to compete in.
Tyro is now a professional surfer on the World Surf League tour and Wise works at the cafe Niche and studies marketing at Canterbury University.
Running the event has been a one-man-band the last few years for Jamieson, all while he manages the Sumner Post Office.
They took inspiration from the Single Fin Mingle, but leant too far into trying to make it bigger and lost sight of its original intention, said Jamieson.
He said this year they will be stripping it right back, with only one bar for food and drink and a judges table.
They are getting rid of the skate ramp and a stand for viewing the surfers which have been used in previous events.
There will be one party on the Saturday night as opposed to three, acting as one final hurrah for the competition.
All profits from the event will go towards Tyro’s WSL campaign.
“It’s pretty cool to be able to give him the opportunity to not get a little bit more money and not kind of stress too much about how you’re going to get around the world,” he said.
The pledge was only known to Tyro when he saw the announcement on Facebook.
“It kind of shows him as a person, he really supports his community,” said Tyro.