Photo by m.maddo under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

The Noosa Festival of Surfing was established in 1992 at Noosa, Queensland by members of the Noosa Malibu Club, as an amateur surfing competition called the Noosa Malibu Classic. It allowed club members to invite friends to surf Noosa's right-hand point breaks and the event's popularity among competitive longboarders gave the club a chance to take the event to a higher level. In 1996 a professional division was introduced and prompted the name change to The Noosa Festival of Surfing (NFoS) in 1998. The World Tandem Surfing Championships were brought to Noosa in 1999 and Stand up paddle surfing was incorporated into the Festival in 2007 with live entertainment and fundraising auctions also being held.

The festival is currently sponsored by Global Surf Industries and is maintained and managed by USM Events and commences with the traditional Mixing of the Waters ceremony led by Hawaiian waterman Brian Keaulana. The Noosa Festival of Surfing is an official Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) Longboard rated event.

Noosa was truly the heart of Australian surfing in the lates 50s and early 60s, with some great innovations in surfboard design. The points at Noosa produce long peeling waves with perfect barrel sections. In those days a perfect wave could be shared amongst a few friends and you could camp at the end of Hastings street. Noosa today suffers from overcrowding and the unfortunate reality of development and urban sprawl. However a good wave can be snagged if you're early and it will be guaranteed a memorable one.

For more information, please visit Noosa Festival of Surfing website.

Retrieved and modified from Wikipedia on May 31, 2010. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this text only under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License and the GNU Free Documentation License.