The 50th Annual Virginia Beach Neptune Festival Boardwalk Weekend— a host of colorful events spanning a long weekend every September — has been Celebrating the Beach Life for 50 years with live music, art walks, locally crafted food and drink and lots of ways to enjoy the best our coastal city has to offer.
But without a doubt, the jewel in Neptune’s crown is always the International Sand Sculpting Championship. If you’re in town for the Fest, you can’t miss the football-field-sized tent on the Virginia Beach Oceanfront between 6th and 8th Streets. That’s where you’ll find 32 imaginative works of sand art created by 32 world-class sculptors — all competing for their share of the $58,000 purse, which is the largest prize of its kind in the country.
More than 450 tons (nearly a million pounds) are trucked in every year for this event. Each solo competitor works with about 15 tons and each team works with approximately 22 tons (that’s a lot of sand!) The imported sand has a small percentage of clay and a finer grain than Virginia Beach sand; this keeps our iconic shoreline intact while giving our artists a more workable medium.
This fanciful exhibition opens to the public during Boardwalk Weekend, typically the last weekend in September, and remains on display for ten days. Scroll on for a selection of contenders from years past — we hope to see you in person this year!
Staci Amend
As a Californian living in Colorado, writer Staci Amend takes a “why not both” approach to the whole mountains vs. oceans debate. She covers travel, nature, beauty and fashion for a variety of publications and brands — and is happiest when surrounded by hand-painted tile, struggling to pronounce her next meal. A Huntington Beach native and longboarder, she tries to time her Virginia Beach visits with the East Coast Surfing Championships.
