What Is A Surf Non-Contest?

Originally posted on SURFER | By Chris Dodds | Last updated Aug 12, 2025 12:07 AM ET

Not only is Daydream a rad surf shop and cafe that holds it down with a ton of events and hangs at their Costa Mesa location, they also bring the community together out in the wild. Such is the case with the Daydream Open Invitational that went down earlier this summer at San O with another one on the horizon (exact date TBD).

Just as their shop quiver is filled with an eclectic array of boards by legendary shapers like Andreini, Liddle, Grant Noble, Gato Heroi, Lovemachine, Elroy, McTavish, and more, the shop is also a meeting point and second home for some of the finest wave sliders this side of the Mississippi. The crew certainly came out stylin' as evidenced by the recap below.

The official guidelines are this, "Daydream Open Invitational - a surf non-contest with an expression session format. We have four, 60 minute divisions, $5 buy in, winner takes all. The divisions were goofy formats designed to allow surfers to pick the best surfboard that intersects with their own individual style and the waves that we had to work with for the day. First was the 3 or more fin division followed by the twin fin division, single fin division, and last but not least the finless division."

"The ultimate goal is to get a bunch of people from our community together to bring out some good surfing for multiple hours for everyone on land and in the water to enjoy. We refrain from using jerseys as we want the surfers that are participating in this expression session to blend in with the rest of the people in the line up and not be given any special privileges. The judging criteria was based off attitude, style, and skill - a combination of factors that we feel express one being in flow with their environment as well as the waves they are surfing."

This article first appeared on SURFER and was syndicated with permission.

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