Celebrate surf, music, and sustainability at Sopela Kosta Fest. Three days of waves, concerts, art, and eco‑friendly activities on the Basque Coast. Discover competitions, workshops, and a vibrant festival atmosphere.

Surf, Music, and Awareness on the Basque Coast

There are festivals that simply happen, and others you truly feel. Sopela Kosta Fest is one of the latter. For three days, from September 19 to 21, the town of Sopelana transforms. The sound of the sea, which quietly accompanies local life throughout the year, blends with guitars, applause, greetings, laughter, and messages about respect for the environment, creativity, sport, and community. There are no fireworks. No posing. Just sea, culture, land, and an energy that spreads as you walk along the sand, stroll through the square, or simply watch a surfboard cut across the water’s surface.

Last year, in its 2024 edition, the festival closed one of its most ambitious chapters yet. It brought intense days of surfing and bodyboarding, open-air film screenings, coastal clean-ups, sustainability workshops, ephemeral art, a surf & skate market with local creators, and unforgettable concerts. All wrapped in an atmosphere of genuine involvement from the public and sincere commitment from the organizers. And this year, in 2025, the festival returns aiming to surpass itself — to strengthen what works and keep growing from the ground up.

Sopela Kosta Fest is not an event disconnected from its location: it is born of the territory and built with it. Those who have experienced it know this. There’s no gap between what happens inside the festival and what happens outside. The beach is the stage and also the star. Artists don’t come to show off — they come to be part of it. Activities aren’t presented as spectacles but as invitations. Everything flows naturally with a clear purpose: to celebrate the sea through active awareness.

One of the festival’s pillars is sport. Surfing, of course, is the core. The beaches of Arrietara and Atxabiribil host official competitions, exhibitions, and open classes each year, giving everyone — from the youngest to the most experienced — a chance to connect with the waves. In 2024, alongside the surf competitions, the festival also featured kayak-surf, waveski, and bodyboard events, showcasing the diversity of disciplines possible along the Basque coast. All organized in collaboration with local clubs and federations, preserving the essence of authentic, no-frills surfing.

The cultural dimension of the festival is another of its great strengths. In the previous edition, Surf Zinema turned the nights into small open-air audiovisual ceremonies by the sea. Documentaries about oceans, territories, activism, and personal journeys were screened outdoors, prompting silence, reflection, and shared applause. During the day, the streets filled with installations, performances, and workshops that connected creativity with sustainability. The surf & skate market, already a festival classic, brought together independent designers, artisans, booksellers, shapers, and photographers — a lively space where ideas are exchanged as much as products.

Music, of course, holds a special place. In 2024, concerts were spread between the Town Hall square and the coastal area, featuring acts as varied as Maruja Limón, Arizona Baby, Acid Tongue, and The Cherry Boppers. The blend of styles reflected the diversity of the audience and the will to avoid formulaic programming. There were moments of celebration, others of attentive listening, and some truly moving instances — like the stormy closing night that briefly halted a performance but turned the wait into a shared moment of resilience and camaraderie. For 2025, while the lineup has yet to be revealed, the organizers have already confirmed their commitment to a program with strong female representation, deep-rooted projects, and plenty of live music.

Environmental commitment is not an add-on here — it’s a foundation. Since its first edition, Sopela Kosta Fest has aligned with the “Erronka Garbia” strategy, aiming to minimize its environmental footprint while maximizing its educational value. This translates into concrete practices: efficient waste management, elimination of plastics, free water for attendees, circular economy workshops, citizen science, and community actions such as beach clean-ups or interpretive walks. In 2024, partnerships with Surfrider Foundation and other environmental organizations generated massive participation. In 2025, those alliances will continue to grow — not as slogans, but as visible actions.

But if there’s one thing that defines Sopela Kosta Fest, it’s its atmosphere. It’s not just about the program, the names, or the staging. What makes this festival memorable is the feeling of being in the right place, surrounded by people who value the same things: the sea, shared time, creativity, and awareness. Walking through the festival means stumbling upon a chat with an artist, a kids’ surf lesson at the shore, a textile recycling workshop, a grandmother buying a handmade board, a group of teenagers taking notes at a biodiversity talk, a band tuning up next to a fanzine stand. All of it coexists. All of it builds the experience.

At Ziro Club, we’ll be following this event with excitement, keeping an eye on everything happening around surfing, local creativity, and environmental commitment. Because for us, surfing is more than a trend — it’s a way of being in the world. And each September, Sopela reminds us of that.