What Do Brisket, Tins, Water Wizardry & 1,000,000 Cent Paycheques Have In Common?

On Friday night at the Traeger Warehouse, Byron Bay Brewery & Stab hosted their first event together – The Big S.U.R.F Showdown. 

At 5pm, as the last of the light vanished behind Ewingsdale, the doors opened. 

On entry, all guests were given a bottlecap and told to keep it safe (we’ll get to how they cashed them out later). 

Inside (but outside) was a stage, a bar, a seating area, a BBQ corner, twelve Soundboks speakers, a cool room, twelve barrels-turned-tables, four surfboards, four huge cardboard cutouts of four different heads, six firepits and two-thousand and forty beers and seltzers. 

For the first two hours, people spoke to one another, ate, and drank. 

It was pleasant. 

Then at the highly specific time of 7:34PM, S.U.R.F mastermind and event host, Danny Johnson took to the stage and notified everyone that there was no noise, movement, or fun permitted of any kind until after the film screening was over. 

Plan backfired. 

There was heaps of giggling, chit-chat, proosts and cheering as Ozzy Wright, Jake Vincent, Soli Bailey and Ari ‘Krooky’ Browne attempted to handshape a board in under six hours with no prior experience, and then paint and surf their creations. 

We won’t give too much away here as the full clip will be dropping shortly, but we will say that there were varying levels of craftsmanship and panic which made it an entertaining exercise to watch. 

After twenty-three minutes, the film concluded and Soundbok speakers wailed with an arresting siren. 

A kind of semi-melodic siren, that sounded half Burning Man psy-trance acid doof opening set track, half air raid siren. 

On screen, the word ‘VOTE’ appeared in bold text, and the audience was told to quickly dig into their pockets, find their bottlecap, and place, throw or slam dunk it in the mouth of the surfer they thought performed best. The surfer with the greatest gross weight in bottlecaps would take home $10K. 

Picketing ensued and a winner won.

Noise, movement and fun ended at different times for different folk, but only after the event finished at 10PM, when they were no longer patrons, and did not have brisket, fire, beers/seltzers, friends and entertainment on standby. 

A lovely evening, thank you Byron Bay Brewery.