BOWLZILLA Gold Coast 2022 is going to be the biggest skating celebration of the year. With the newly opened borders there will be skaters coming from far and wide. The Australian Skateboarding Federation are ensuring the National Park Skating Championships will be bigger and better than ever.
2022 is already shaping up to be amazing and the annual week of skating festivities on the Gold Coast is going to put it over the top. With a packed line up of Learn To Ride clinics, Art Shows, workshops, Music, Parties, Food and the Competition, everyone is guaranteed a good time at BOWLZILLA Gold Coast.
ASF are again ensuring Australian skating is properly supported with the seventh annual BOWLZILLA Gold Coast National Park Skating Championships. The biggest competition of the year in Australia has nurtured Olympic champions like Keegan Palmer, Poppy Olsen and Kieran Woolley, along with underground legends like Shaun Boucher, Aimee Massie, Nixen Osborne and Shanae Collins. With divisions across all ages, abilities and sexes, the goal has always been to get everyone together to inspire each other and have all the fun. A source of pride is that it is the largest Equality in Skateboarding event in Australia with equal prize purse across the Open and Women divisions. It also has a huge prize pool for the 16 & Unders and prize money for the Masters.
It is important to skateboarding and BOWLZILLA, that ASF competitions are run by members of the skateboarding community across Australia as a collaborative effort, and ASF are stoked to have BOWLZILLA as the peak National Park Skating event for 2022 with all its fantastic partners and amazing festival events.
Once again back is the incredible; Yeah Girl. Their support of BOWLZILLA Gold Coast is invaluable each year. They kick the week off with a women’s Learn to Ride clinic, continue the awesomeness with workshops and art shows, ensure the Equality in Skateboarding prize purse is funded and finish off the celebration with curation of the Dive In after party.
"Yeah Girl was established to help promote and support the amazing talents of the international women’s skate community. We do this through our art shows, workshops, learn to ride sessions, advocating and support. BOWLZILLA Gold Coast is the perfect partner for us because they have always worked hard to ensure an equal platform for all skaters. They were the first international competition to have a woman as head judge for the entire competition and they are the largest Equality-in-Skateboarding competition in Australia. What we really love about BOWLZILLA is that it brings the skate community together and fosters great sports(wo)manship and camaraderie. BOWLZILLA regular Poppy Olsen was a prime example of this during the Women’s Park Finals at the Olympic Games when she lifted Japanese skater Misugu onto her shoulders in a show of support after she fell in her final run. This is what Yeah Girl stands for and BOWLZILLA Gold Coast supports.” Sarah Huston – Yeah Girl
Tourism and Sport Minister Stirling Hinchliffe said events like BOWLZILLA were important to the Palaszczuk Government’s Economic Recovery Plan for the Gold Coast.
“Events bring competitors and spectators to the Gold Coast which benefits local jobs, accommodation and transport providers, as well as restaurants and cafés,” Mr Hinchliffe said.
That’s why in 2022 we’re backing events that make a sound contribution to the Gold Coast’s visitor economy.
“Learn to ride clinics at BOWLZILLA 2022 are a terrific way to get immersed in Australian skate culture.”
BOWLZILLA is supported by the Queensland Government through Tourism and Events Queensland and features on the It’s Live! in Queensland events calendar. Their support helps promote the festival to a much wider audience and helps to show how participation in the skating community continues to grow each year. It helps show off the best of skating to the world and encourages them to come and be part of it all.
Gold Coast City Council have done fantastic things for skateboarding and also the local community through skating for decades. The number of facilities they have built, skate schools they support and events like BOWLZILLA Gold Coast that they encourage, has ensured the Gold Coast has the best skate scene in Australia. It also has benefits for the wider community with lifestyle and business opportunities. New world class facilities in the coming years heading toward the Olympics will only serve to cement this legacy.
“Broadening our annual events calendar has never been more important,’’ said Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate.
“BOWLZILLA fits that bill perfectly as it attracts the best skaters from the country for a week-long program of workshops, shows, exhibitions and competitions.
“I applaud organisers and look forward to visiting Elanora in March for the action.’’
Chad Ford; BOWLZILLA – Director: “Seven years in and we’re just getting started with BOWLZILLA Gold Coast. When we began all those years ago the goal was to create a reliable, fun, entertaining gathering to show off our friends and family’s amazing talents and get everyone together once a year to catch up and celebrate. We have grown beyond that to become the biggest skateboard festival in the country, set international standards with equality in skateboarding with our prize purse and staffing, nurtured the local kids into becoming the current biggest sporting event finalists and gold medalists and most importantly become the dependable community gathering we had hoped we could be. None of this would have been possible without the foresight and investment made by Gold Coast City Council which provided the base for us to build upon and then the support from Major Events Gold Coast and Tourism & Events Queensland which has enabled us to support and promote the talents of our amazing community and of course the skaters and our friends and family that have driven it all from the outset. Everything is free and everyone is welcome to come and join us for the week to celebrate.”
All photos by Sarah Huston for Yeah Girl
