Box of Light is made possible thanks to these visionaries:
The calm after the 2024 New Zealand Surfing Championships storm is kind of welcomed. What a hectic week of incredible surfing, long, hot days and magic moments.
Using my basic maths I've worked out that the event brought in more than $1 million to Dunedin. That's a pretty hefty chunk for our wee city by the sea. That spend is distributed between accommodation, rental cars, meals, food, surf gear, and, of course, a fair bit is spent over the bars during the week.
Dunedin brought some awesome weather, too – even a few southerly squalls inflicting 10°C temperature drops on the gathered masses ... just to keep everyone on their toes.
The visiting surfers had a lot of good things to say about their time here. Most found some time to explore our other beaches and score a few quality sessions away from the comp site. Some mornings the surf was dreadful, but more crowded than we are used to – and the quality of surfing was high, so not many spare waves around last week. Things have returned to normal now and the locals can go back to chasing the empty peaks.
Full congratulations to the team at SCBRA who went above and beyond to make sure the event hit a high note with the judges and admin staff from Surfing New Zealand.
Next stop ... Westport.
See you at the beach ... Derek
Box of Light is made possible thanks to these visionaries: