Surfest’s 40-year history on show at Newcastle Museum [VIDEO]

newy.com.au – A free exhibition marking Surfest’s 40th anniversary will open at Newcastle Museum on Friday 20 March, offering Novocastrians a look back at the competition’s history and its place in local, national and international surfing culture. The exhibition, Newcastle: The City That Made Surfest, follows a year-long collaboration between the museum and Surfest. 

The display will feature objects and photographs from the Surfest archives, items loaned by the community and surfboards owned by local surfing figures Mark Richards and Russell ‘Russ’ Maloney. It will also include a board presented to Maloney, the women’s trophy linked to Phillipa Anderson as Surfest’s first Novocastrian champion, and classic footage from across the event’s history.

City of Newcastle CEO Jeremy Bath said the council helped launch Surfest in 1985, while director museum archive libraries and learning Julie Baird said the exhibition would highlight the role the event has played in shaping the city.

Organiser Warren Smith said local support and early broadcasts by NBN Television had been vital to the contest’s success, with the city also backing an NBN documentary marking the anniversary.

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