Lesley’s Perspective
Our Facebook Live videos at the Ballito Pro attracted between 1.4K and 2.6K views per video online
As the official media partners of the Ballito Pro, myself and my team spent the most part of last week on the beach. Rough life hey?
I can tell you the energy was fantastic.
After Christmas, the Ballito Pro is the biggest event on the Dolphin Coast yearly calendar.
The surfing event was a blur of extreme all round fun.
Holiday-makers packed our beaches and our waves played host to some of the world’s best surfers.
Hats off to Collette and her team from KwaDukuza for a sterling job all round.
The free concerts are a highlight for most people and there really is nothing to rival it in these parts.
If you missed it, do yourself a favour and pack up your family and a picnic basket next year for an awesome evening on the beach.
I know there was some unhappiness over litter left on the beach the next morning but well done to the event organisers and KwaDukuza for ensuring it was promptly cleaned up.
If you can’t handle the noise then perhaps its a good time to schedule a weekend away (I hear Blythedale is very quiet this time of year).
Our design and then win a surf board competition, in conjunction with the Pro and Groundswell Surf Shop was a huge hit.
The competition was to promote the #SaveTheWaves campaign and created quite a buzz on the beach.
We had about 80 ‘selfie’ entries taken with the board and entered via our Facebook page. Ballito’s Grant Visagie was our very enthusiastic winner.
Visagie was so happy when he found out he had won it was difficult to get more than a ‘woohoo!’ out of him.
“Now I’ll never have to borrow another friends board,” said Visagie, who surfs up and down the coast, from Addington all the way up to Blythedale.
The board was handcrafted by Groundswell’s Jono Hutchinson and designed by Ballito graphic designer/illustrator Dustin Scott to feature an eerie skeletal turtle trapped in ocean rubbish.
Facebook Live
The Pro also turned out to be an excellent place to experiment with ‘Facebook Live’ (basically live streaming over Facebook).
Our live videos attracted between 1.4K and 2.6K views per video online.
The most popular video being by reporter Allan Troskie during a flyover of the Ballito Pro in the IPSS Security Anti Poaching airplane.
Our followers loved the bird’s eye view of the coastline and also being able to spot their homes from the air!
Look out for more Facebook Lives of breaking news and community events.
https://www.facebook.com/northcoastcourier/videos/1585793594773315/
