Canceled: The Barrel Fest We’ve Been Waiting For

So close… There will be no Rip Curl Padang Padang Cup in 2017. l Indo’s been pumping all season long, but after a couple of anticipated swells ended up fizzling contest organizers have decided to fold up the tent and call the whole thing off until next year.

“Our standard is to guarantee 16 of the world’s best tube riders are competing on the best day of the year at Padang Padang,” said James Hendy, Rip Curl Southeast Asia Marketing Manager. “Anything less would mean compromising the integrity of the event.”

Other back-up locations, including Bingin or Uluwatu were ruled out as options as Rip Curl is adamant about hosting the comp at “Bali’s premier barreling wave.”

With competitors like Bruce Irons, Mason Ho and Tom Curren in the draw, we’d be lying if we said we weren’t a little disappointed. This was the best roster we’ve seen in the history of the event.

“I think it was a good call not to run the event on the mediocre days at Padang,” said Malibu golden boy Dillon Perillo. “If you run this event, you want to have full guns blazing. People have been getting barreled every day and there’s been people on the cliff watching and cheering. It just wasn’t good enough for this standard of a contest. When the waves did come they were pretty legit, but there weren’t enough waves every 30 minutes for a heat worthy of a global audience. This isn’t a wave catching contest, it’s a barrel riding contest.”

There are still a few more days left in the official waiting period, but with nothing really popping on the forecast charts this tube-party’s going to have to wait until 2018.