SAVE THE DATE: BOWLZILLA Gold Coast 2024

BOWLZILLA Gold Coast Skating on Cloud Nine

BOWLZILLA Gold Coast is celebrating nine years of ripping this February 24th. Friends, family and fans are all rolling in for Australia’s biggest week of Park Skating. The Australian Skateboarding Federation National Park Skating Championships will be bigger and better than ever.

A week of skating in Australia’s favourite destination has already got skaters near and far getting their crew together and booking travel. The ninth annual skating festival on the Gold Coast is full up with; Learn To Ride clinics, Art Shows, workshops, Music, Parties, Food and the Competition. BOWLZILLA Gold Coast will be riding high on Cloud 9 this year.

The main event at BOWLZILLA Gold Coast is the Australian Skateboarding Federation’s National Park Skating championships for 2024. With inclusive divisions across all ages, abilities and sexes, the cross pollination of generations and styles ensures the greatest week of skating in Australia. Maintaining the largest Equality in Skateboarding event in Australia with equal prize purse across the Open and Women’s divisions is just one of the key ingredients making the celebrations such a success. Adding in the Open prize purse, cash for the Masters and prizes for the 16 & Under Amateur division, almost everyone goes home with something awesome.

BOWLZILLA Gold Coast is supported by Experience Gold Coast and the Queensland Government through Tourism and Events Queensland and features on the It’s Live! in Queensland events calendar. Promoting the celebration to a much wider audience is incredibly important in bringing greater awareness and better support for our community. We’re showing the best of friend’s skating to the world and encouraging them to come and be part of it all.

The City of Gold Coast have backed skating since forever and are continuously proactive in working with skaters to find ways of supporting them and encouraging their successes. It is not just the fact they have more skateparks per capita than anywhere else in the country but how they have supported the women’s skate scene with previous successes such as the workshops, activations and art shows, the many and varied skate events that have been both funded and supported across ages, styles and levels of expertise and also the grass roots opportunities they provide by working with Gold Coast Skateboard Coaching and so many others in the community. All of this comes to a culmination in the festivities that are BOWLZILLA Gold Coast every year.

“The Gold Coast’s star continues to shine with fantastic events like BOWLZILLA back for 2024,” said Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate.

“I welcome the international competitors to the city as they battle with Australia's top skateboarders at Elanora and urge locals to get involved in the week-long expo which supports BOWLZILLA, offering free skate sessions and seminars from the pros."

Chad Ford; BOWLZILLA – Director: “Our focus each and every year has always been the excuse to gather or friends and family from near and far and celebrate their talents and share all the best our community has to offer. Grinding into our ninth year on the Gold Coast is no small feat and we are looking forward to stepping up to the challenge of ensuring this year will be our biggest and best yet. Our friends and family are the greatest and we invite you all to come and celebrate them with us at this year’s BOWLZILLA Gold Coast!

21st February: Girl’s Learn To Ride Clinic – Tugun Skatepark

22nd February: SALKZILLA

23rd February: Gold Coast Grill – local hosted BBQ skate session

24th February: BOWLZILLA™ Gold Coast, Australia’s; National Park Skating Championships

24th February: Dive In – official after party – Rattlesnake Motel

BOWLZILLA Gold Coast 2023 Highlights

Beautiful one day, ripping the next. The BOWLZILLA Gold Coast highlights clip is here to warm up the southern winter with a scorching summer recap – watch, enjoy and GO SKATE.

Higher, faster, longer, funner. Competitions can push skaters to challenge themselves and risk that little bit more. The best of it is when they’re pushing their mate in the next run to do better than they just did. Yeah, people won but that wasn’t ever the point. Nothing and no one was left behind this year and everyone celebrated together at the end. BOWLZILLA Gold Coast 2023 was a uniform free zone of rad times and ripping skating.

The Gold Coast skate scene is massive and growing with so many rad spots and generations of shredders keeping the torch lit it is no wonder that it is being called the skate mecca of Australia. Everyone’s welcome to come and grind the epic concrete and share in the stoke of it all.

It’s the community that makes BOWLZILLA Gold Coast happen and as rad as it is. Without their support it just isn’t possible to have festivals like these. The week is really a celebration of how epic they all are. Watch the shredding in the 16 & Unders, Masters, Yeah Girl Women and Opens and you'll see the next step that Australian skating took in 2023.

Sponsors and partners like; Dickies, Santa Cruz, Independent, Kangol, Yeah Girl, Gold Coast Skateboard Coaching, Australian Skateboarding Federation, Truckstop, Fuel TV, Girl’s Skate Gold Coast, Etnies, Rattlesnake Motel, Gold Coast City Council and Tourism & Events Queensland made sure everyone got thanked properly.

Massive shout outs go to all the friends, family, fans, media, sponsors, supporters, community, crew, and skaters for what was truly one of the best years ever for BOWLZILLA Gold Coast.

BOWLZILLA Gold Coast – Lifting Boarders

BOWLZILLA Gold Coast was the last international professional skateboard competition of 2020 before the world closed down. It will be the largest competition of the New Year lifting boarder’s spirits around the country. Once again the ASF National Park Skating Championships will be back to bring the cheer.

With such a crazy year behind us, there are high expectations for 2021 and what it will bring. BOWLZILLA Gold Coast will be do its part in bringing back the positive with the festival hosting; art, music, learn to ride clinics, food, parties and of course the competition.

For the sixth year BOWLZILLA Gold Coast is the ASF National Park Skating Championships, which makes it the peak ASF park skating competition in Australia, with the highest prize money in Australia. The competition has equal prize purse across Yeah Girl Women’s and Dickies Open, the largest Masters prize purse in Australasia and an oversupply of prizes for 16 & Unders.

The BOWLZILLA Gold Coast festival is about the gathering of Australia’s skateboarding community for a week on the Gold Coast, which is the best skate community in Australia, to celebrate all that makes them great, art, music, food, friends, community and skating.

The main show, the competition is the Australian Skateboarding Federation’s biggest Park Competition of the year for them and the Nation. ASF competitions are run by members of the skateboarding community across Australia as a collaborative effort, and the ASF are stoked to have BOWLZILLA as the peak national park event for 2021 with all its fantastic partners and amazing festival events.

Global powerhouse Yeah Girl started on the Gold Coast and has grown to an international platform showcasing the many varied and awesome abilities of womxn’s skateboarding. They have supported BOWLZILLA since inception and work together every year to ensure the highest paid Equality-in-Skateboarding event in Australia and that it continues to support the ever-growing womxn’s skateboard community on its path to the largest international competitive stage.

"Yeah Girl began as a way to give voice and spirit to the ever growing and evolving womxn's skate community. Working with BOWLZILLA Gold Coast was a no-brainer — they have always tried to find ways to further develop their understanding and support of the womxn's skate scene. At the first BOWLZILLA Gold Coast in 2016, Shari Duffy became the first woman to judge an international skateboard competition and has since taken on the role of Head Judge. The competition itself, having the largest Equality-In-Skateboarding prize purse in Australia, and the many other things done during the festival and behind the scenes every year in planning, help promote the best of our community on the largest stage available in Australia.” Sarah Huston – Yeah Girl

The only reason BOWLZILLA Gold Coast is even possible is because of the foresight of the Gold Coast City Council. They have provided the support and the platform for what is the Nation’s best skateboard community. What they continue to do each year with building more skateparks and providing more learn to ride clinics and the supporting of events which help rally and showcase the community is beyond compare in Australia. BOWLZILLA Gold Coast being the largest event of its kind in Australia is testament to the great work GCCC has done so far.

“Our city is expanding its major events calendar, actively seeking out new format events to attract national interest in the coast,’’ said Mayor Tom Tate.

“You only have to say the word BOWLZILLA to make you want to hear more. Blending cool music with epic skate bowl skills, great food and world-class competition is the perfect recipe for a great event.

“I wish organisers and competitors every success with the program and look forward to the thousands of social media selfies being shared across the globe.’’

Major Events Gold Coast CEO Jan McCormick:

"I’m thrilled to see BOWLZILLA hit the Gold Coast once again in 2021. The action-packed event is an iconic feature in our city’s sporting events calendar. I look forward to welcoming the competitors, their families and the spectators to another memorable National Championships.”

BOWLZILLA Gold Coast is supported by the Queensland Government through Tourism and Events Queensland and features on the It’s Live! in Queensland events calendar. TEQ’s support helps promote BOWLZILLA Gold Coast and attract friends and family from far and wide, not just for the week of the festival but throughout the entire year. Being part of the It’s Live! in Queensland events calendar helps show off the best of us to the world and encourages them to come and be part of it all.

The BOWLZILLA Gold Coast festival is coming back for a sixth year! The week of fun on and off the board returns with a womxn’s learn to ride clinic with Yeah Girl and Gold Coast Skateboard Coaching, Beach Burrito Company is the night-time venue for the week for art, food and parties, there are several local hosted barbecues at some of the best skateparks in Australia and it is all wrapped around the biggest comp of the year in Australia at Elanora skatepark.

“This year BOWLZILLA Gold Coast is dedicated to the far too many we have lost in our community over the last year, especially Australian legend Grant “Biff” Murdoch. We realise how lucky we are to still be perpetuating our Peter Pan Complex with this festival and will do everything we can to lift the spirits of our community with a fantastic week on the Gold Coast. Our job is to spread joy and inspire and we will make sure there are equally high doses of both. We thank all of our supporters for assisting us in continuing the stoke that is BOWLZILLA Gold Coast. We are an Open Boarders event, so everyone with a positive attitude is welcome to come join us at our free week of skating celebration.” Chad Ford; BOWLZILLA – Director.

BOWLZILLA stands on the shoulders of giants and we strive in all we do to acknowledge the influential skaters and scene that came before us; Patti McGee, Tony Alva, Lora Thornhill, Jay Adams, Adrian Jones, Grant “Biff” Murdoch, Dog Town, Steve Alba, Suicidal Tendencies, Black Flag, Pearl Jam, The Red Hot Chilli Peppers, The Hellmen, Glen E. Friedman, Thrasher, Independent, The Bones Brigade, The Beastie Boys, Lance Mountain, Chris Miller, Cara Beth Burnside and Tony Hawk. The new guard of Poppy Olsen, Keegan Palmer, Taniah Meyers, Grant Taylor, Lizzie Armanto, Danny Leon, Nicole Hause, Rune Glifberg, Omar Hassan, Bucky Lasek, Jack Fardell and Pedro Barros, would not be here without this heritage. BOWLZILLA™ acknowledges and celebrates this with plans to build on the past and write a bright and energetic future.

Dates:

13th March 2021

Event info: TBC – information coming soon

9th March: Yeah Girl x Gold Coast Skateboard Coaching – Girl’s Learn To Ride Clinic – Tugun Skatepark, Boyd St, Tugun 4224

10th March: Gold Coast Grill – local hosted BBQ skate session – more to come

11th March: Tic Taco art exhibition / video premier – Beach Burrito Company; The Strand Shop 25/26, 72-80 Marine Parade, Coolangatta 4225 Ph: (07) 5536 4192

12th March: Gold Coast Grill – local hosted BBQ skate session – more to come

13th March: BOWLZILLA™ Gold Coast, Australia’s; National Park Skating Championships – 1 Pines Lane, Elanora QLD 4221

13th March: Dive In – official after party – Beach Burrito Company; The Strand Shop 25/26, 72-80 Marine Parade, Coolangatta 4225 Ph: (07) 5536 4192

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BOWLZILLA Gold Coast 2018 highlights