#EuroSIMA Family: Hotdogger Surf Swap
A look back at the 2024 Hotdogger Surf Swap in Biarritz
"ON A FESTIVAL AIR
Now in its fourth year, the Hotdogger Surf Swap has become a festival, stretching from the lighthouse plateau to the Grande Plage de Biarritz with our trophy, and to the Regina with our exhibition of vintage boards. An opportunity to celebrate the surfboard in all its forms. And the central idea that there can be no art of living without know-how.
A village, shapers and good sound
From early morning on Friday May 24, the Surf Swap village set up shop at the Biarritz lighthouse, as it has done every year since 2021. On the grass, for the village of boards and shapers, which included a bar and four food trucks. And above all, a stage where the group Neptune Grass performed to great acclaim, and djs DVNO and Cosmic Neman in particular, who came for their third swaper star. And on the other side of the lighthouse, overlooking the Grande Plage, the esplanade was set up for vintage vehicles including a magnificent 1952 Chevrolet pick-up, the Corvette and other vehicles from Rétro Galerie, T1 vans and Volkswagen Beetles from the Combi Cruiser Club, and skateboarders from The Bay for demonstrations, initiations and a wild cash for tricks session featuring Tom Barthélémy.
The village attracted a record number of visitors this year, and sales and exchanges continued well into Sunday, sometimes much faster than in previous years (some Bilbo would have lasted barely an hour on the grass). In addition to the usual partners (Deus Ex Machina, among others, for its coffee, Vissla for its shape caravan animated with good humor by Paul Duvignau, but also Jonsen Island and its now famous arm-wrestling table) the festival hosted a Rip Curl wetsuit repair workshop (nearly forty wetsuits were repaired free of charge), Wetty presented the top in collaboration with Hotdogger, Rhythm offered a vinyl bar where everyone could choose their tunes, and Surflounge and Milo Hats completed the village with their accessories and novelties.
THE SECOND EDITION OF THE HOTDOGGER TROPHY PRESENTED BY JONSEN ISLAND HAS SET UP SHOP AT BIARRITZ'S GRANDE PLAGE.
On Saturday 25th, the suspense was at its height with the forecast calling for a dead calm, but the second edition of the Hotdogger Trophy presented by Jonsen Island this year was able to take place in a meter of very clean swell and crystal-clear water. The concept is still the same: mostly vintage boards are brought in by competitors, and a draw is made between one, two, three or four daggerboards for each competitor. Last year's winner Thomas La Fonta had to relinquish his trophy to Édouard Delpero and finished third. Raoul Torre, already third last year, climbed up one place on the podium for this ultra-tight final, in which his friend the talented Tom Dubos also shone. Two talented young surfers also joined the line-up: Oana Duboscq and Ana Morau. Let's bet there'll be plenty of them in 2025 to challenge the boys for the trophy!
An exceptional exhibition ...
The festival continued throughout the weekend with the "Hotdogger Vintage Show", an exhibition of nearly twenty vintage boards installed throughout the month of June at the five-star Regina Experimental, a stone's throw from the lighthouse. Exceptional boards by such masters of the shape as Greg Noll, Ben Aipa, Dick Brewer, Bob Cooper and Jeff McCallum... and two boards by Luc Rolland.
The exhibition ended with an auction organized by our partner Côte Basque Enchères.
Join us May 23-25, 2025 for the fifth edition of the Hotdogger Surf Festival!
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