Boardmasters Festival is an annual event held in

Cornwall Cornwall (; or ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is also one of the Celtic nations and the homeland of the Cornish people. The county is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, ...

, United Kingdom, usually spanning five days on the second weekend of August. The event is a combination of live music and surfing/skateboarding competitions in and around the town of Newquay. The festival was founded in 1981 as a surfing competition, and in 2005 it was expanded to include music acts, taking place at Watergate Bay. In 2024 the official capacity of the event was increased to 58,000. The majority of the music performances take place to the north of

Newquay Newquay ( ; ) is a town on the north coast in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is a civil parishes in England, civil parish, seaside resort, regional centre for aerospace industries with an airport and a spaceport, and a fishing port on t ...

near

Watergate Bay Watergate Bay (, meaning ''cove at Coryan's farmstead/village'') is a long bay or beach flanked by cliffs centred two miles NNE of Newquay below the B3276 Newquay to Padstow road near the hamlet of Tregurrian in Cornwall, United Kingdom. It ...

. The Men's Pro 5 Star WQS surf competition takes place on

Fistral Beach Fistral Beach is in Fistral Bay (, meaning ''cove of the foul water'') on the north coast of Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is situated half a mile west of Newquay at . Fistral Bay is bounded by two promontories, Towan Head to ...

where a skate ramp is built for the BMX and Skateboard competitions. Other sporting events include The Women's Open, WSL Men's Longboard, WSL Women's Longboard, Boys/Girls Pro Junior and Under 12's. It is also known to feature a well-being program, a tea-room, and a fairground. The event is owned and managed by Vision Nine Group. In 2017 the Boardmasters Foundation was started to support local causes, such as the

RNLI The Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) is the largest of the lifeboat services operating around the coasts of the United Kingdom, Ireland, the Channel Islands, and the Isle of Man, as well as on some inland waterways. Founded in 1824 ...

, with raised up to 2023.

Music festival

The Watergate Bay site hosts the music arena and all festival camping. The festival runs from Wednesday to Monday, with music performances running from Friday to Sunday across ten stages: The Main Stage, Unleashed, The Point, The Land Of Saints, Corona Sunsets, The View, The Netloft, The Dockyard, Keg & Pasty and the VIP Bar/Stage. Past years have seen performers such as

Bastille The Bastille (, ) was a fortress in Paris, known as the Bastille Saint-Antoine. It played an important role in the internal conflicts of France and for most of its history was used as a state prison by the kings of France. It was stormed by a ...

Faithless Faithless are an English dance music Band (rock and pop), band that formed in 1995, with its core original members being Rollo Armstrong, Rollo, Sister Bliss and Maxi Jazz. During the band's initial period of success, Sister Bliss and Maxi Ja ...

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The Chemical Brothers The Chemical Brothers are an English electronic music duo formed by Ed Simons and Tom Rowlands in Manchester in 1992. They were pioneers in bringing the big beat genre to the forefront of pop culture. Originally known as The Dust Brothers, th ...

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, Years and Years,

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and

Craig David Craig Ashley David (born 5 May 1981) is an English singer. He rose to fame in 1999, featuring on the single " Re-Rewind" by Artful Dodger. David's debut studio album, '' Born to Do It'', was released in 2000, to great commercial success. In to ...

List of music headliners

Cancellations

In 2014, the organisers of the festival were forced to cancel the final day at the Watergate Bay site due to the remnants of Hurricane Bertha. Artists due to perform were

Reel Big Fish Reel Big Fish is an American ska punk band from Huntington Beach, California. The band gained mainstream recognition in the mid-to-late 1990s during the third wave of ska with the release of the gold-certified album '' Turn the Radio Off''. So ...

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and

. However, the surf competition at Fistral Beach continued as normal and full refunds for the cancelled day were received by customers. The 2019 event was also cancelled hours before it was due to take place, after serious concerns of bad weather forecast to disrupt the event. Boardmasters was then cancelled for a second year in a row in 2020, due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

Award nominations

Boardmasters was nominated for ‘Best Medium Sized Festival’ at the 2014

UK Festival Awards The UK Festival Awards are awarded annually, with various categories for all aspects of festivals that have taken place in the UK, and one category for European festivals. The Awards were first established in 2004 by Steve Jenner and his team a ...

, alongside

Secret Garden Party The Secret Garden Party, often colloquially shortened to the SGP, is an independent music festival, arts and music festival held in Abbots Ripton, England. The location is on part of the grounds of a Georgian farmhouse and has its own lakes, river ...

Camp Bestival Camp Bestival is a British music festival, the "little sister" of Bestival, both organised by BBC Radio 1 DJ Rob Da Bank. It is held annually, in July, at Lulworth Castle in Dorset and is targeted at families with small children. In 2019 it h ...

, and winners We Are FSTVL. In 2023 it was nominated again for the UK Festival Awards, this time in the ‘Best Large Festival’ category.

Surf and skate

the surf, BMX and skate competitions take place along with more music during the evenings. A small mini-ramp is set up on the headland and the

vert ramp A vert ramp is a form of half-pipe used in extreme sports such as vert skating, vert skateboarding, vert BMX and vert roller skating. Vert ramps are so named because they transition from a horizontal plane (known as the flat-bottom) to a v ...

is built in the beach car park. A purpose-built beach bar hosts more musical acts and evening beach sessions. The festival has received local criticism due to its greater focus on the music performances, rather than the "extreme sports" side that the event was originally known for.

Professional surf competition winners

References

External links

* {{Authority control Newquay Tourist attractions in Cornwall Music festivals in Cornwall Surfing competitions