Kata Surfing contest

Surfing in Kata Beach

Surf’s up! The three-day 7th Kata Surfing Contest takes place from August 31 to September 2 off Kata Beach, near the Kata Beach Resort.

The Tourism Authority of Thailand and Karon Municipality are supporting the contest as a way of encouraging local youngsters to become more involved in the sport and, among other things, to use the sport to save people in danger of drowning.

Surf boards are already used by many of Phuket’s beach life-guards and rescue teams.

Participants

This year the organisers expect at least 120 competitors, most of them visitors who head for Phuket in the low tourist season just to surf. Last year, in addition to local surfers, the competition attracted about 80 participants from the UK, the USA, Japan, Australia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore and elsewhere.

Classes and Prizes

There are five classes as follows (with prizes in brackets):
• Long board open (8,000, 6,000, 4,000 and 2,000 baht);
• Short board open (8,000, 6,000, 4,000 and 2,000 baht);
• Grommet (4,000, 3,000, 2,000 and 1,000 baht);
• Girls (4,000, 3,000, 2,000 and 1,000 baht);
• Body board (4,000, 3,000, 2,000 and 1,000 baht).
• In addition, the top five competitors in each class will receive trophies.

The entry fee is 400 baht for the long and short board open competitions and 300 baht for the other classes. For more information or to enter the contest, contact Wallop Nadon by email to:
wallopsurfshopkatabeach@hotmail.com
Read more about Surfing in Phuket

Laguna Phuket Summer Music Camp

Date: August 6 – 11
Venue: Laguna Phuket
Contact: Laguna Phuket Office, Tel: + 66 (0) 76 324 416

Some of the island’s best teenage talent – both Thai and foreign – will rock the shores of Phuket at a Summer Music Camp organised by the Hong Kong-based YRock community project. The camp offers five afternoons of free music workshops to students living in Phuket or on holiday at Laguna, from July 6 to 11, working with YRock’s team of pop, rock, rap and classical-rock fusion professionals.

Eligible to join are any act, talent or audiovisual crew, including bands, vocalists, soloists, dancers, DJs and media jocks. Classically-trained musicians will be able to expand their horizons with “Clock”, a fusion of classical and rock styles. Participants will also be encouraged to help organise or take part in the final live performance on Saturday July 11, from 19:30 to 21:30, if not as performers, then as promoters, sound and lighting technicians or simply to be heard or seen through original music compositions or digital media.

The YRock team will include Producer and deejay/MC Ricky Spinn, Programme Director Chris Collins; Veejay Turkish; Belinda Howard; and YRock POP Challenge winners Dani & Maren, and Chris Carpio. YRock was set up in 2005 with the aim of bringing together students from all backgrounds and musical influences, creating a pop culture platform for self-expression and development in music performance and multimedia. To learn more, see the YRock website (www.yrock.com.hk). For further information or to join in, send email to: nattiraa@lagunaphuket.com

Phuket Film Festival 2007

Date: October 21-27, 2007
Venue: Jungceylon, Patong
Contact: filmfestival.phuket@gmail.com

The 2007 Phuket Film Festival will take place at the Jungceylon shopping complex in Patong, organized by SF Cinema City. Movies showing at the festival will come from all over the world. Films already confirmed include The King of the White Elephant (Thailand), Romulus, My Father (Australia), Surveillance (UK), Tuli (Philippines), Men at Work (Iran), Batad (Philippines), Summer (UK), A Hero...in Rome (Greece), Good Time Max (USA), Zen & Zero (Austria), Sharkwater (Canada), Sand Dancer (New Zealand), An Inconvenient Truth (USA) and De Sarrollo Humano (Spain).

In addition to the movie screenings there will be a variety of workshops at the Millennium Patong Resort. These will include “Restoration and Presentation of Audio Visual Artifacts” (October 22), “Legal Aspects of Co-production” (October 23), “What the Heck is a Producer Anyhow?” (October 24, morning) and “Legal Aspects of Film-making” (October 24, afternoon).
For more information, please contact: filmfestival.phuket@gmail.com

Por Tor Festival 2007

Kathu Shrine

Dates: August 22 – September 3, 2007
Venue: At all Chinese shrines located on the island
Contract: TAT office Tel: + 66 (0) 76 212 213

The “Hungry Ghosts” festival is an important merit-making event for ethnic Chinese. Special food, flowers and candles are presented to ancestors’ altars in order to feed the ghosts that are said to have been released from hell for the month.

Colourful cakes in the shape of turtles are made and put on display. Since turtles symbolise longevity, worshippers believe that making such an offering will help extend their lives. Contact the Tourism Authority of Thailand Phuket office (Tel: 076 212 213) for detail