“Australians will send out an entire ship to spit sand in the right spot, just for a surf break… I love how much they love surfing here,” Caity Simmers tells me post-heat, standing atop Burleigh Point on opening day. It’s Saturday afternoon, and the Gold Coast stretches out behind her so vibrantly it feels like a photobombing grom — giddy, grinning, and shaka-flinging. The Goldie has bolted out of its five-year timeout and back onto the playground with Skittle stains across its cheeks, and the opening weekend of the Bonsoy Gold Coast Pro was one big technicolour sugar high.
The decision to bring the Championship Tour back to the Goldie was a celebrated win amongst the criticism the WSL often receives from the average surf fan on social media.
“Historically, the Gold Coast was like the big bonus for qualifying for the tour, especially with it being the first event back in the day,” Ronnie Blakey says while on break from the mic. “It was a nice transition for rookies to come here — it’s a performance wave where they seemed to be on pretty level pegging with the world’s best, and they could actually go at it. Charging wasn’t an issue, it was more like, ‘What kind of high-performance surfing can you do at this unbelievable location?’ I think all the people who had qualified for the CT over the last few years kind of felt like that was missing from the Dream Tour that they had pictured in their mind. The significance of this place being a stop just can’t be overstated.”
“And as for the fans,” Ronnie continues, “we travel the world and there are passionate fans at every single venue. But late in the afternoon on a weekend in Australia, you are going to see some people who’ve really been celebrating surfing. This is one of the biggest surf meccas in the world and Australians throw themselves wholeheartedly into the festival component of the events. I don’t think it matters if it’s Bells, Gold Coast or Margaret River — you’re going to run into some characters who’ve had a big day in the sun.”
It’s a playful chaos. Groms run through the crowd with cardboard cutouts of Liam O’Brien’s face, like schools of fish swimming against the stream. Kaipo throws W-contorted hands in the air from the top scaffolding, shouting “WESTSIDE” into the oncoming night. Hare Krishnas chant through the streets of Burleigh, banging cookware, in what I infer to be a celebration of the recently announced 2026 CT format.
Griffin Colapinto fruitfully focuses his pre-heat pineal breathwork towards managing the noise. “Energy-wise, there’s a lot going on here. That’s for sure. So it’s about balancing that and just trying to stay centered,” he says.
“But as chaotic as it is,” Griffin adds, “the fans in Australia know more about surfing than anywhere else in the world. They’re the most informed and up-to-date on everything. It shows even just in what they decide to talk to you about when they come up to you on the beach.”
Caity, the fellow Southern Californian, shares a similar observation: “It’s interesting because there are fewer people here but more people who are interested in surfing. At home, I can kind of go about my day without people knowing who I am, but here, everyone at the cafe knows about surfing and knows everyone.”
The aftermath of Cyclone Alfred, which hit the Gold Coast in early March, brings another flavour of chaos to the event beyond a last-minute location change from Snapper. The banks at Burleigh have gone from fucked to funky, adding yet another element to what was already a moody break.
Jesse Outram, president of the Burleigh Boardriders Club, stands on the beach below the Pavilion after the men’s opening round and points towards the water: “It’s going to break all through the tides and there are a few different zones. Even though it’s here, there, and everywhere, it’s actually pretty good for three-person heats. There have been so many good waves that people have been missing, so it’s not like they’re all sitting down at supper with nothing. It’s not going to be proper Burleigh, but if it’s small, it’s actually going to be more fun than if it’s the normal bank at Burleigh.”
The decision to relocate from Snapper (which was hardly breaking a few weeks ago when the call was made) has been so far, so good. Ronnie shares, “I didn’t know how it was going to go. I’m so accustomed to thinking that Snapper is the ultimate CT destination on the Gold Coast. I kind of had my doubts about how it was going to work, seeing the sandbar the way it is, but seeing the event come together over the opening day has actually been a nice little change up. Burleigh is actually better than Snapper for viewing; it’s a nice grassy headland to sit on and it’s a bit more elevated.”
Although Burleigh hasn’t held a CT event in more than two decades, it’s been an action-packed year with the famous headland hosting a number of local and international contests. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” Jesse laughs. “It was like back-to-back, we had our Single Fin event, then the QS, then hosted the ABB for the second year. Now there’s this. And next we’ve got the Solento Surf Festival with Taylor Steele next month. So there’s a bit on…” he laughs again.
In terms of how that’s settling with the locals, seeing how Burleigh is a notoriously localised break, Jesse responds: “The feelings are mixed. You’ve got a lot of the older boys that are a bit, you know, ‘how you going’ on it. And then you’ve got all the groms walking around taking selfies with the pros and are absolutely frothing. So it’s completely from one end of the spectrum to the other. But I’m loving the event. The world’s best stuff is out here. If you’re into surfing, you can’t complain.”
Less than a day before the event kicked off, the WSL dropped a real banger of a press release stating the new format changes for the 2026 season. The general sentiment of the news is that maybe, finally, we really are inching closer towards the ultimate goal: getting back to the Dream Tour. Running into the WSL Athlete Rep the next day, Christian Beserra tells me that the surfers are almost unanimously happy with the news.
If the energy at the Gold Coast Pro this weekend has been any indicator of how the fans are feeling, it’s safe to say the celebration has already begun. Stephanie Gilmore wraps the weekend on Burleigh Headland by swinging around a Gibson SG onstage with Spiderbait — a moment so Aussie surf-core it practically cracked a tinny on its own.
