Where to catch the outdoor and online 2020 Wavescape Surf and Ocean Fest

The partnership will add a welcome physical element to a series of online and hybrid events hosted by Wavescape in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. Wavescape collaborates with young South African artist Yay Abe for this year’s artwork, utilising a theme of ‘adaptation’ as the world slowly moves towards a new normal.

Vans have provided 10 ‘blank’ pairs of white sneakers to be decorated by local artists. These will be auctioned on Instagram during the festival, which runs from Friday, 4 December to Saturday, 12 December. The surfboard art exhibition has been streamlined into a one-off, one-of-a-kind artboard by Brett Murray.

Photographic exhibit 

The Save Our Seas Foundation (SOSF), which supports shark conservation projects worldwide, resumes its long-standing relationship with Wavescape. SOSF will present the outdoor photographic exhibit Wild Seas by National Geographic photographer Thomas Peschak featuring his most iconic images from two decades of documenting both the beauty and fragility of the world’s oceans. SOSF has also teamed up with artist Chris Auret to create an ocean-conscious mural along the Sea Point promenade.

Virtual Slide Night

In other positive developments, the flagship ocean evening of talks, Slide Night has gone virtual, which has opened up the possibility to host international speakers, among them renowned conservation and nature photographers Cristina Goettsch Mittermeier and Chris Burkard.

Mittermeier is a Mexican biologist and author who founded the International League of Conservation Photographers and renowned ocean organisation Sea Legacy. Burkard is a Californian artist whose work revolves around the ocean - often in remote locations around the world, and usually with surfing at its core.

Oceans Alive

Wavescape will again host Oceans Alive - in partnership with the Two Oceans Aquarium and Wesgro. This year, the evening of ocean activism will host some of the top surfers and conservationists from South Africa and the world in a conversation about Cape Town, Cold Water and Conservation.

Zag Shorts

The festival postpones the Wavescape Masterclass to next year but replaces it with Zag Shorts - a Wavescape collaboration with Zigzag Surfing Magazine. This short film competition for aspiring surf and ocean filmmakers culminates in an evening of selected screenings followed by an awards ceremony and Q&A at Jack Black’s Brewery with the winners on Friday, 11 December.

Other events and elements of the festival include a webinar on making the film industry and film set plastic-free with the Wesgro Film Promotion Unit, a beach clean-up with Beach Co-op and the Spike Swell Course (a virtual evening of wave science and forecasting with Spike from Wavescape).