Quiksilver Is About To Throw A Week-Long Party In France And Your Name Is On The Guest List

Driving into Hossegor, all roads seem to lead to a central roundabout, where the Quiksilver flagship store sits just opposite the provincially named Café de Paris, the town’s answer to Café de Flore — the once iconic, now TikTokable cafe in the French capital.

Both are prime people-watching spots, but in the South West France the hot chocolates have been replaced by towers of beer, which I’m still unsure whether to order by length or volume.

The picturesque lakeside/oceanside town marks what is undeniably the heart of European surfing, and a rite of passage destination for the wide-eyed, surf-star-struck European grom. If one were to speculate on a shooting location for an unlikely collaboration between Larry Clark and Éric Rohmer, odds would favor Hossegor, even if it nowadays feels less grimy or wild. Espadrilles and Lacoste pullovers knotted around pasty necks have replaced grubby bare feet and salt-stained sneakers, yet the thundering shorebreak of La Gravière unloads imperviously.

Sand moves in mysterious and magical ways in this part of the world, and in no other place does the saying “Time and Tide wait for no man” make more sense than here. Small talk over last night’s rugby in the parking lot is enough for the promise of glassy cylinders to turn into a victory-at-sea mess in a reverse Cinderella story.

Following a few decades of CT events, it’s baffling that these shores haven’t hosted a major international surfing event since 2019 — of which Jeremy Flores remains the reigning champion. 

In a rush of nostalgia and celebration, the former wunderkind and tour veteran took the initiative to bring The Quiksilver Festival back to where it belongs for a week-long celebration of surf culture.

A decade on tour will add some interesting characters to your contact list, so it didn’t take long for Jeremy’s group chat to light up with RSVPs from past world champs such as Adriano de Souza and CJ Hobgood, the parent-offspring duos of Josh and Sierra Kerr and Shane and Jackson Dorian, tube hounds Vahiné Fierro, Kauli Vaast and Aritz Aranburu, as well as freesurf darlings Noa Deane, Mason Ho, Clay Marzo, and Mikey Wright, among other notables.

The event has a seven day waiting period and will run for four days. There will be twelve teams of two surfers. Each comp day will have its own theme:

-Barrels and airs
-Turns
-Combos
-Twin fins

After four days of surfing, the team that has collected the most points across those divisions will become your first-ever Quiksilver Festival champs. The event site is currently being erected at Les Culs Nus (the local naturist stretch of sand), but if this morning’s tube fest is anything to go by, chances are we might see some of the aforementioned names threading some sandy tubs at La Gravière over the course of next week.

With the warmest water in Atlantic-facing continental Europe (shout out to the Gulf Stream, or whatever they’ve decided to call it now), and a very promising forecast, there’s still time to book flights to the nearest airport, pack the car, or hitchhike for a week of great surf, skateboarding, music, art, and the send-off that a summer deserves in this very special corner of the world.

Scroll here for the full program. And, we’ll be covering the event right here on Stab.