2015 Fact Sheet Date 15 – 26 April 2015 Where Surfer’s Point, Prevelly, Margaret River One of 11 men’s and 10 women’s World Surfing League (WSL) Championship Status Tour (CT) events in the world - the highest tier surfing competition Men’s: Top 32 ranked male (plus 1 WSL and 1 event wild card entries). Surfers Women’s: 17 ranked female (plus 1 event wild card entry) Men’s: C.J. Hobgood (USA) and Glenn Hall (IRL) WSL Wild Cards Women’s: Dimity Stoyle (AUS) The WA Trials will take place on 14 April and only open to Western Australian Event Wild Cards surfers. The winner and runner up of the men’s and winner of the women’s WA Trials category will each get a wild card entry into the Pro to surf against the world’s best. Over 12 days, surfers will compete on the days producing the best conditions Competition days as determined by the WSL judges. If their call is ‘Off’, then no competition will take place that day. The event date range is set to be longer than required to take into account possible lay days. The exact days of the competition heats and finals is not Event date range known beforehand and called on the day to ensure surfers compete in the best conditions available. The inaugural event was held in 1985. This year is the 30th anniversary of the Event history Drug Aware Margaret River Pro. This year is the second year the Pro has had CT status. No. of Spectators 30,000 spectators are expected Spectator entry fee Free Online viewers 4 million viewers in 200+ countries are expected to stream the live event online Television Tens of millions viewers will watch the one-hour highlights television broadcast Broadcast that is beamed globally. In Australia it will be aired on Fox Sports. Destination unique Margaret River is the only wine region in the world that also has world-class point surf breaks worthy of a World Championship Tour event. Staff & volunteers 300 event staff and volunteers The original governing body of professional surfing, the International Professional Surfers (IPS), was founded in 1976 and spearheaded by Hawaiian About World surfers Fred Hemmings and Randy Rarick. The next evolution was the Surfing League Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP), founded in 1983 by Ian Cairns and (WSL) giving birth in the 90’s to the company philosophy of “world’s best surfers, world’s best waves”. 2015 saw the ASP officially become the World Surf League. Current World Men’s: Gabriel Medina (BRA) Champions Women’s: Stephanie Gilmore (AUS) A panel of five judges scores each wave on a scale of one to ten. For every scoring ride, the highest and lowest scores (of the five judges) are discounted and the surfer receives the average of the remaining three scores. There is no Scoring limit on the number of waves that will be scored, but the two best scoring waves (each out of a possible 10) are added together to become a surfer’s heat total (out of a possible 20). Men’s total prize pool US$550,000 Prize pool Women’s total prize pool US$262,500 First prize US$100,000 Men’s prize money 2nd US$40,000 3rd US$20,000 (x2) Media Contact: Dianne Bortoletto, Pronto PR, [email protected], 0439 997 075 1 5th place US$15,000 (x5) all lowest finishing surfers US$9,000 First prize US$60,000 2nd US$25,000 Women’s prize 3rd US$16,250 (x2) money 5th place $12,250 (x5) lowest finishing surfers US$9,000 Official Charity SurfAid Awards Winner 2014 WA Tourism Awards Major Festivals and Events Facebook https://www.facebook.com/WSL Twitter @Surfing_WA @WSL Instagram @surfing_wa @WSL YouTube https://www.youtube.com/wsl Official hashtag #MargiesPro #thisisWA Website http://www.worldsurfleague.com/ NB: The World Surfing League Championship was formerly ASP World Championship Tour Comparison 2012 to 2014 % Description 2012 2014 INCREASE Visitors from Outside Region 4,474 6,702 50% Visitor Expenditure from Outside Region $2,723,717 $4,414,930 62% Total Visitor Nights from Outside Region 12,301 25,643 108% Visitor Expenditure from Outside of WA $884,517 $1,517,332 72% Average Length of Stay 10.3 Days 13.7 Days 33% Total Event Spectator Numbers 25,000 40,000 60% Live Event Webcast (Unique Viewers) 748,099 3,435,218 359% Event Website Page Views (Unique) 2,028,593 14,519,686 615% Social Media Reach 250,000 12,700,000 4980% Digital Event Related Content Watched - 1,300,000 hours - Supplementary Margaret River Content Viewed Online - 9,300,000 mins - Online Media Content Reach - 1,600,000,000 readers - Drug Aware Margaret River Pro Past Winners Year Men’s Women’s Year Men’s Women’s 1985 Mark Occhilupo No Women’s Event 2000 Mark Bannister Melanie Redman 1986 Tom Carroll No Women’s Event 2001 Mick Fanning Melanie Redman 1987 Tom Carroll No Women’s Event 2002 Joel Parkinson Melanie Redman-Carr 1988 No Event No Event 2003 Mick Campbell Heather Clarke 1989 Dave Macaulay Wendy Botha 2004 Neco Padaratz Dara Penfold 1990 Barton Lynch Wendy Botha 2005 Troy Brooks Yvonne Byron 1991 No Event No Event 2006 Mark Occhilupo No Women’s Event 1992 Tom Carroll Jodie Cooper 2007 Kieren Perrow Jacqueline Silva 1993 Gary Elkerton Pam Burridge 2008 Tom Whitaker Paige Hareb 1994 No Event No Event 2009 Dan Ross Melanie Redman-Carr 1995 Barton Lynch Wendy Botha 2010 Josh Kerr Chelsea Hedges 1996 Chris Gallagher Pam Burridge 2011 Damien Hobgood Courtney Conlogue 1997 Taj Burrow Lynette McKenzie 2012 John John Florence Courtney Conlogue 1998 Jake Paterson Prue Jeffries 2013 Dusty Payne Carissa Moore 1999 Luke Egan Kate Skarratt 2014 Michel Bourez Carissa Moore Media Contact: Dianne Bortoletto, Pronto PR, [email protected], 0439 997 075 2 .