‘It's mostly about the kids,’ Hall of Fame surfer Rob Machado says of revived Cardiff festival
By Tanya Mannes
Union-Tribune Staff Writer
ENCINITAS — Three years ago, the Cardiff Chamber of Commerce stopped organizing a surfing competition and beach fair with renowned surfer Rob Machado because it had grown too big.
This year, it's back. A group of volunteers is reviving the event. The weekend festival, with its Cardiff King and Queen of the Reef, will be scaled down with low-key, homegrown entertainment, and no alcohol.
“That's how it should be, really,” said Machado, who lives in Cardiff. “It's just about getting the whole community down to the beach and enjoying a good weekend with everybody surfing. It's mostly about the kids.”
The Rob Machado Surf Experience and Green Expo is scheduled for Sept. 26 and 27 at Seaside Reef and its parking lot.
The centerpiece of the event will continue to be an all-ages surf triathlon with longboard, shortboard and paddling categories. It's an open division, winner-take-all contest with a $500 cash prize for first place. The winners are named Cardiff King and Queen of the Reef. A surf contest for children under 16 also will be held.
The green part of the expo will feature environmentally friendly exhibits. Vendors will demonstrate products such as biodegradable surf wax and nontoxic sunscreen. There will be a surfboard-shaping contest using environmentally friendly boards.
Residents are eager for the return of the popular festival, which the Cardiff chamber and Machado hosted from 1996 to 2005.
Chamber members Betty Steele and Brenda Dizon, along with resident Betsy O'Neill, decided to resurrect the festival because they missed the tradition. They are combining it with the green expo that Steele and Dizon first organized last summer.
“We're going back to the roots of it being a community event — about the kids, about the contest, about local lore and history — and bringing people together as a community,” said O'Neill, who formerly used the last name Aceti. “It's a way of maintaining our coastal identity.”
Machado is a big name in surfing. He was ranked among the top 10 surfers for 11 years and was inducted into the Surfers Hall of Fame in 2000.
Now 35, Machado has established The Rob Machado Foundation, which through an annual golf tournament supports environmental charities — including the Cardiff Education Foundation's efforts to green the local school district.
Over the years, the King of the Reef contest was run by well-known Encinitas surfers, including “Kahuna Bob” Edwards and Linda Benson. It was held at Seaside, then moved to Cardiff Reef.
For years, the event was called the Hansen/Machado Surf Classic & Cardiff Beach Fair, reflecting sponsorship by Hansen's Surf Shop in Encinitas. Hansen is providing financial support for this year's event but is not the major sponsor.
In the festival's final year, 2005, it featured a beer garden, Polynesian dancers and a performance by the San Diego rock group Switchfoot, known for its live shows. Former festival organizer Jim Clark estimated that 30,000 to 40,000 people attended over the two days.
State officials became alarmed at the number of people, said Ed Vodrazka, a lifeguard supervisor for California State Lifeguards who reviews permit applications for surf competitions in the San Diego area.
“The major problem was the contest got too big for a very small venue and they basically had a surf contest, a community fair and a rock concert at the same time,” Vodrazka said. “It became unsafe for the public to have all that activity without adequate law enforcement.”
After the 2005 festival, state officials asked Clark to end the beer garden and live music, and said permit fees would be raised to cover security.
The Cardiff Chamber of Commerce then announced that it would stop hosting the event because it would be unable to raise enough money to cover the costs, Clark said, adding that it was a tough decision.
“Without the revenue from the beer garden and what we generated drawing people to the onstage show, we couldn't put it on,” Clark said. “We very rarely if ever made profit on that event.”
After the chamber pulled out, clothing company Roxy took over the time slot at Cardiff Reef. The company sponsored a women's surfing competition, the Linda Benson Women's World Longboard Pro, for three years.
Roxy didn't reserve the time slot this year, which made it available for the Cardiff chamber volunteers to bring back the Machado event.
Clark said he has provided advice, but isn't involved in planning this year's festival.
“I think it's awesome that they're bringing it back,” he said. “The kids loved it.”
O'Neill said the group is “on board with the state” and its restrictions.
“We don't want a super crowd swell,” she said. “We don't want a Huntington Beach-type event.”
This year, the event is expected to draw around 10,000 people, largely from Cardiff, said Dizon, one of the organizers. Local musical groups but no “big-name” acts will perform, she said.
To make up for the reduced revenue, the county Board of Supervisors approved a grant of $11,000 proposed by Supervisor Pam Slater-Price, which will cover the state permit fees — around $8,000 for the two-day event — and marketing costs.
Clothing company Hurley International is a major sponsor.
Other activities will be a photography contest, art projects, hula-hoop contests and yoga.
“It's not just for surfers,” O'Neill said. “It's for everyone.”
Cardiff-by-the-Sea Lodge
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