Quik Fest Draws 55,000 to France for 9 Days of Surf, Skate, and Music

The Quiksilver Festival presented by Swatch just wrapped its fourth edition in Southwest France, drawing more than 55,000 surf, skate, and music fans to Hossegor, Capbreton, and Seignosse across nine days of competition, concerts, art, and general end-of-summer mayhem. Since launching in 2022, the festival has carved out a unique spot on the European surf calendar, blending high-level surfing with the broader culture that surrounds it. This year’s edition leaned hard into that formula, with a surf contest, skate and bike events, film screenings, art, and a packed music schedule.

On the surfing side, some of the biggest names in the game joined festival host and French legend Jeremy Flores, including Olympic gold medalist Kauli Vaast, Championship Tour warrior Marco Mignot, actor Taz Skylar, and SLS champion Vincent Milou. Hughie Vaughan and Kash Brown of Australia ultimately took the win at La Nord in Hossegor following five high-flying days of competition. The local team of Noah Dupouy, Sam Piter, and Kyllian Guerrin finished second, with Californians Eithan Osborne and Parker Coffin close behind.

But as anyone who has spent time around Hossegor knows, the festival was about considerably more than what happened in the lineup. Music has become a central part of the Quiksilver Festival experience, and this year the event teamed up with legendary French label Ed Banger. Led by founder and DJ Pedro Winter, the lineup brought nearly nonstop music across three stages in Hossegor, Capbreton, and Seignosse. MYD, So Me, Breakbot, Alexsucks, Rebequita and Kokoprisci were among the artists who kept things moving after the sun went down. Winter summed up the festival’s appeal pretty well.

“You have to imagine a Festival set in an incredible location, at the crossroads between surf culture, music and skate, with the ocean as a backdrop for my set, filled with people ready to party and the whole experience is free! What more could you ask for?” he said.

The skaters and BMXers got their share of the spotlight, too. Vincent Milou’s Cash for Tricks and Swatch’s Playground Unleashed brought riders including Matthias Dandois, Sam Pilgrim, Sky Brown, and Milou to three different venues. Crowds reached as many as 2,000 at one of the skate events, with the festival welcoming athletes as young as six.

Visually, the whole thing was wrapped in the distinctive aesthetic of French artist So Me, whose magenta-and-yellow artwork appeared across stages, trophies, jerseys, posters, T-shirts and plenty of other festival ephemera. For Flores, watching the event grow over four years has been part of the payoff.

“It’s really something to see the Quiksilver Festival attract more people with each passing year, crowds of all ages and countries who discover or rediscover our world here in les Landes,” he said. “It’s been epic and we can’t wait for next year!”

With 55,000 people through the gates and a week that managed to blur the lines between surf contest, music festival, and cultural gathering, the Quiksilver Festival appears to be settling into its role as one of European surfing’s marquee end-of-summer events.