Newquay BID wants you to stop avoiding town during Boardmasters

For years the advice has been the same on social media, travel forums and in conversations between visitors: steer clear of Newquay when Boardmasters is on. Newquay BID reckons that advice is out of date, and it has launched a campaign to prove it.

What Beyond Boardmasters is

Beyond Boardmasters launches this summer and is built around one idea. The town is open, welcoming and full of things to do during one of its busiest weeks of the year, and there is plenty happening well beyond the festival gates.

The campaign forms part of the wider Love Newquay initiative, which champions the businesses, attractions and experiences across the town throughout the year.

The problem is perception, not traffic

Concerns about traffic congestion during Boardmasters kept a lot of visitors away from Newquay in August. Those worries made sense in previous years. Newquay BID says the situation on the ground now looks very different.

Working with the Boardmasters team over several years, the BID has seen real changes in transport planning and traffic management. More coach travel to the festival site has cut the number of vehicles heading to Watergate Bay, and better traffic management has eased pressure on the town’s roads.

During last year’s festival, many businesses reported that the town centre felt unusually quiet despite one of the UK’s biggest festivals taking place a few miles away. Car parks had spare capacity. The Park & Ride ran well below capacity. Once festival arrivals had reached the site, train services were quieter than many people expected.

The message from the BID is that the challenge is no longer the traffic. It is the reputation that has stuck around long after the experience changed.

What is open during festival week

Throughout Boardmasters week, Newquay’s independent businesses, cafés, restaurants, pubs, hotels, retailers and visitor attractions stay open and ready for guests.

Recent additions give visitors more reasons to explore the town centre. The Newquay Mural Trail and the new Surfer of the South statue both point people towards the streets rather than just the beach.

The festival is leaning back into surfing

While the music remains a huge draw, Boardmasters has invested in returning to its surfing roots. This year brings an enhanced championship-level surf competition at Fistral Beach, pulling in world-class surfers and spectators. Around it there will be skateboarding, activations, demonstrations and entertainment across Fistral and the Headland.

Boardmasters has also acted on feedback from Newquay BID and local partners on transport. The shuttle bus service now offers affordable unlimited travel between the festival site, the beaches and the town centre.

A different approach this year

Newquay BID has previously worked with Boardmasters on getting festivalgoers into the town centre, including the Boardies discount campaign. It went down well, but visitor behaviour showed that many attendees preferred to stay on the festival site.

So the focus has shifted. Rather than aiming mainly at festivalgoers, Beyond Boardmasters is pitched at holidaymakers, day visitors and local residents, encouraging them not to avoid Newquay that week but to make the most of it.

Businesses across the town are being invited to take part with exclusive promotions, experiences and incentives. A dedicated Beyond Boardmasters webpage will host an interactive map covering restaurants, cafés, pubs, shops, attractions, beaches, events and offers, working as a one-stop guide for the week. The BID is also looking at producing leaflets to hand out to festivalgoers and visitors.

A festival village in the town centre

Adding to the week, Newquay BID is working with Newquay Town Council and WAX Events to create a Beyond Boardmasters Village on the Killacourt.

It promises live entertainment, local markets, community performances, family activities and independent traders in the heart of the town. Together with what is happening at Fistral Beach and Watergate Bay, the aim is a festival atmosphere that stretches right across Newquay.

What the organisers say

Mark Warren, Manager of Newquay BID, said people have long linked Boardmasters week with staying away because of traffic, and that the reality today is very different. “Thanks to the incredible work that Boardmasters has done around transport and traffic management, the town is more accessible than ever during festival week.”

Mark added that the campaign is about changing perceptions and supporting local businesses. “We want visitors to look beyond Boardmasters and discover everything our town has to offer.”

Rob Spring, Boardmasters Festival Director, said the event has always been about more than the music and the surf. He pointed to two years of work with Newquay BID, the council and the local community to improve how festivalgoers travel to and from the site.

“We know Boardmasters brings a huge amount of energy to Newquay every summer, and we want as many of that energy as possible to spill out into the town centre too,” Rob said. He described the campaign as a way of showing visitors how much Newquay has to offer beyond the festival gates.

Newquay BID accepts that shifting a long-held perception will take more than one summer to fix.