Welcome To The ‘Top Chef’ of Surfboard Shaping

Ideas are fleeting, but carrying them out requires perseverance, stones and sheer bloody-mindedness.

One fruit of such labour is The Boardroom Show, an annual celebration of surfboards and their shapers that’s just completed its 24th edition at the Del Mar, CA, Fairgrounds.

“The idea came from the Clark Foam closure in ’05,” says Boardroom Show’s founder Scott Bass. “There was a lot of shapers that I looked up to who didn’t have anywhere to put their wares.’

“Retailers were filling their brick and mortars with overseas stuff—which I don’t blame them for—but in the meantime, the local shaper was getting left out. These guys are crucial to our culture, so I thought we had to do something to showcase them. That’s kind of the nexus of the whole deal.”

Scott had a dream: a festival of the surfboard that showcased the best of what the world’s rich array of board builders big-and-small had to offer.

Clearly, someone had to pay for this thing, so Scott put down his own capital, then decided to start at the top and work his way down. The results were instant and encouraging.

“I called Rusty (Preisendorfer) that first year and said, ‘Rusty, if I do this, will you get a booth?’” Scott explains. “He was like, ‘Yeah you can count on me.’ And then I called Matt Biolos and said, ‘Matt, if I do this, will you get a booth?’ And Matt said, ‘Yes.’ So I had two of the stalwarts of the surfboard industry agree to do it, then it just sort of took off from there.”

What’s materialised from that point is far more nuanced than a room full of stacked racks. Clearly a creative romantic, Scott’s baby has morphed into a blend of competition, trade show and celebration, with themes galore. The brand booth set-up is pretty self-explanatory, featuring surfboards, hardware, all things surf — but the competition side is where things really get interesting. 

Every year The Boardroom Show honours a shaper (in the past they’ve had Al Merrick, Simon Anderson, MR, John Bradbury, to name but a few) in their ‘Icons of Foam Shape-Off’ — a competition where board-builders chosen by the iconic shaper have to recreate some of their classic designs, all by hand, under a time limit, for a shot at the crown. 

This year is was the legendary Hawaiian shaper Eric Arakawa, and the shapers he chose to recreate his designs were Dan Mann, Todd Proctor, Adam Warden, Chris Christenson, Richie Collins, Barry Van der Meulen Rodolfo Klima, and Allen White, who qualified for winning the shape-off element of the Surf Expo on the east coast.

The boards in question featured, “A Derek Ho tri-fin from his ’93 World Title winning campaign, a Waimea Bay gun he made for Ronnie Burns in ’86, then the Andy Irons board that he won the Pipe Masters and the World Title on in 2003.” Scott explains. “It’s strictly timed — they get to look at and measure the original board, then their hour and a half starts. Two shapers at a time, side by side like man-on-man heat.”

Eric Arakawa then judged the winner, and interestingly it was Dan Mann, who took down Allen White the wildcard in the final. 

Apart from the ‘Icons of Foam’ there were all sorts of interesting components to The Boardroom Show, like a VIP dinner where eight paying customers got to hang and fine-dine with Eric and guests, and another, more low key shape-off that Scott describes as “The British Bake Off of surfboards.”

“It’s called the ‘Best in Show’ competition, it’s open to any board builder around the world. It’s free, and the public vote on the winner,” Scott says. “All you got to do is build a board and bring it to the show.”

As with everything Boardroom Show, there’s a theme (this is the Bake-Off Part), and this year Scott told competitors to, “Go make us a fish, but I want you to add wooden accents to the board and include meaningful symbology — maybe it’s your grandfather’s purple heart or your daughter’s astrological sign…” 

The ‘Best in Show’ in 2025 was won by Steve Farwell of Farwell Surboards from Newport Beach, CA, who’ll receive a free booth at the next Boardroom Show for his troubles. 

Basically if you nerd-out on high-end surfboards (aka you surf at all), be sure to try get to the 25th instalment of the Boardroom Show. 

Apart from supporting craftsmen big and small, you’ll be vindicating an idea, which is always a worthwhile pursuit in our books. 

Give them a follow on IG for all Boardroom Show updates.

*For the three people on whom our sarcasm is lost: Gerry Lopez and Eric Arakawa.