Catching Up With: Sacred Craft Founder Scott Bass

josh hunter

• October 13 2009
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Scott Bass launched a consumer surfboard expo three years ago called Sacred Craft in Del Mar, California. Now he’s got five shows under his belt—the latest of which had more than 5,000 paying attendees. TransWorld Business caught up with Bass to hear his impressions of the most recent show and his plans for the future. Here’s what he had to say.

How long have you been doing Sacred Craft?

This is actually the third year, and I’ve actually done five Sacred Craft shows. We’ve done three in Del Mar, one in Ventura, and I did one in Huntington Beach during Hurley’s US Open because Bob [Hurley] called me and asked me if I wanted to do one. It was sort of a mini version [of the show].

How did the idea for the show come about?

We grew up with surf shops that were owned by shapers, and you went in there and hung out and ordered boards from the guys. There was a certain kind of surf shop vibe that was a big part of the surf community and a big part of what being a surfer meant.

Unfortunately, with real estate being what it is on the coast in California, a lot of those Mom and Pop surf shops have died off. There are still quite a few, but there are also some replacements that came into the picture that wouldn’t have surfboards on the floor if they didn’t have to. But they have to so they can call themselves a surf shop.

To be quite blunt, these types of shops aren’t owned by surfers; they are owned by people who saw an opportunity to sell clothes. So there wasn’t a passion play there and those shops decided since they had to carry surfboards they’d bring in the top four [brands] and then fill out the rest of their inventory with a bunch of low-end Asian built boards.

it was frustrating to see these guys getting pushed to the side, and it was really affecting the surf culture in local communities.

What that did was force the local shapers out of the market place. There are a bunch of these guys that all of a sudden weren’t being supported by the local surf shop … So I thought it was frustrating to see these guys getting pushed to the side, and it was really affecting the surf culture in local communities.

I wanted to marry the local surfers with the local shapers.  … So that was the impetus—we just needed a place to show off all these guys’ boards! In many ways Sacred Craft is about putting the consumer in front of the shaper.

The line to get in stretched out of sight Saturday morning.

It seems like the show was very well attended. Did you see significant attendance growth this year?

It was kind of out of control in a good way. There were roughly 5,200 people in attendance this year. Last year we had around 3,500. We’re not sure what to accredit that to. I’d like to think it was my marketing efforts, but it could just be that Mark Richards was there signing autographs [laughs]. There were roughly 5,200 people in attendance this year.

I actually think it was a couple of things. There wasn’t any surf, there was no Chargers game on Sunday, and the antique road show thing we did on Saturday was a success. All of those things really attributed a lot.

Plus, in this day and age everyone seems to be pretty viral with their marketing efforts. Everybody that was involved in the show had information about the show on their Facebook pages or was Twittering about it, so I think that is really a testament to the sort of digital age we live in. You don’t have to do as much traditional marketing for an event like this as you use to have to do.

Did the number of vendors grow as well?

We had a full hall, and in fact we had some people outside this year as well. So we had more vendors than ever this year. It was somewhere around 150 [vendors] this year.

The general age demographic of attendee seemed pretty varied at the show. Is that something you expected?

It’s generational, you know. The demographic is pretty wide now. It’s a timing thing I think. It probably wouldn’t have happened in the early 90s even, but it seems like the old crusty guys are quite as crusty anymore. Having kids will do that to you. It’s interesting because the old, salty, crusty Sunset Cliffs dude is there in full force, but that brought their kids and they’re just groms. It’s kind of neat because I think the salty guys get to grom out again.

I want to get a younger demographic into the show.

I can’t stress enough how much I want to get a younger demographic into the show. I think the Channel Islands and the …Lost’s of the world would be so smart to bring in some of their team riders and do an autograph signing like Quiksilver did with Mark Richards. So, to that end, at each show I try and highlight a young shaper. Ryan Burch shaped a board at this show, and we’re really trying to get a younger demo into the show. That’s why we let kids in for free. That really showed at this show because there were tons of kids there and they were super stoked.

Do you regulate whether or not your vendors sell product to the public at the show?

No. My whole thing is let’s do business. Why wouldn’t we? Let’s sell some surfboards. Now, that being said, I frown on prices going down. I think that’s wrong. I don’t try to manipulate any prices or anything or tell people what they can do with their business, but I think that it’s a mistake to go the way of Snow-A-Palooza and dump all your cheap stuff on people. It’s bad for the market in general.

Are there plans in place to expand Sacred Craft and do more of these types of consumer shows?

Oh yeah! We’re looking internationally at Japan, and we want to keep our roots here as well. Santa Cruz has been bandied about as a possible location quite a bit. Obviously Huntington Beach is a no brainer and should be done, but there’s just one big hurdle. There are great locations, but they are expensive—very expensive. So to get that done the way I think it needs to be done would require a major sponsor to step up.

We’ve got Santa Cruz, Japan, Hawaii, and the East Coast in mind.

We’re doing Ventura again in the spring. We’ve got Santa Cruz, Japan, Hawaii, and of course the East Coast in mind. So I’m in sort of in a good position because we’re growing ridiculously fast and there are so many great opportunities right now.

To see more photos from the event, CLICK HERE.