The World Surf League (WSL) Asia Pacific (APAC) is excited to announce that the penultimate event of the 2024/25 regional Qualifying Series (QS) will be held at Newcastle Beach this March. The Genesis Health & Fitness Women's Pro and EJE Men's Pro, QS 1000, will run in conjunction with Newcastle SURFEST from March 13 - 15, 2025.
The QS 1000 event will be the first of a number of events to run as part of Newcastle SURFEST, starting in March and culminating at the Burton Automotive Newcastle SURFEST Presented by Bonsoy Challenger Series event in June.
The event is expected to attract over 150 competitors from Australia and the Oceania and Asia regions as competitors all look to bank important points ahead of the 2025 Challenger Series qualification, which will be decided the following week at the Phillip Island Pro. It will also be the first time since 2006 that a WSL Qualifying Series event has run at Newcastle Beach, a location where surfers such as 11x World Champion Kelly Slater (USA), Tom Curren (USA), Sally Fitzgibbons (AUS), Stephanie Gilmore (AUS), Tom Carroll (AUS), Layne Beachley (AUS), Mark Occhilupo (AUS), Wendy Botha (RSA), and Damian Hardman (AUS) all have all claimed a SURFEST success.
"WSL is stoked to see the QS return to Newcastle in 2025," said WSL APAC Tour Director Ty Sorati. "This event will be a super important one for those surfers sitting around the qualification cut-off for the 2025 Challenger Series, so it will be exciting to see the battles go down. We'd like to thank Warren Smith and the team at Surfest for their work on getting this event off the ground, and we look forward to working with them again this year."
Continuing the tradition of the last 39 years, the Newcastle business community has rallied around SURFEST, with 32 local businesses all getting involved in the crowdfunding effort to get this QS 1000 off the ground. This unique community-led support of the event also saw two businesses win naming rights to both divisions, with Genesis Health & Fitness taking the women's event and EJE the men's.
"We're thrilled to be bringing a WSL Qualifying Series event back to Newcastle Beach in 2025," said SURFEST Founder Warren Smith. "To see all of these local businesses get behind the crowdfunding effort year in and year out is truly incredible, and I'd like to thank everyone who is involved because these events wouldn't happen without this community support. Having the Challenger Series come to town this year is so exciting, but we're so proud to keep the Qualifying Series event going and continue to offer opportunities for the regional surfers."
The 2025 Newcastle Surfest QS 1000 will run at Newcastle Beach, NSW, from March 13 - 15, 2025.