More than 2,000 athletes are set to descend on the sand north of the Huntington Beach Pier starting Friday for the three-day SoCal Fitness Festival, a competition that organizers say has roughly doubled in size since 2024. Tens of thousands of visitors are expected to pack the beach for a lineup that includes strongman competitions, Olympic weightlifting, and a U.S. Army-presented obstacle challenge called The Gauntlet.
The flagship event of the festival is Gymreapers Wodapalooza, a CrossFit-style competition that originated in Miami and still holds its original event there each March, according to the Los Angeles Times. This marks the third year the competition has set up shop in Huntington Beach, and organizers describe it as an event still very much in expansion mode. The brand traces back to 2012, when it launched as a single-day grassroots competition in Miami Beach with just 145 athletes and 500 spectators, according to Wodapalooza.
Behind the scenes, the event's corporate ownership shifted last September when live events company Loud And Live sold the Wodapalooza brand to WZA Sports, an entity led by former Loud & Live executive Dylan Malitsky and long-time CrossFit community investors, per The Barbell Spin. Eric Emerson Botsford, senior vice president of growth and expansion at WZA Sports, is producing the Huntington Beach event, the Los Angeles Times reports.
Council Pitch Emphasized Early Bedtimes
Botsford addressed the Huntington Beach City Council to make the case for the festival's economic footprint, which organizers peg at $8 million, according to the Los Angeles Times. He told the council the athlete crowd tends to be low-impact for the city at night. “We love to dine, shop and sleep in beds,” Botsford said. “We don't cause a lot of problems, because we go to bed pretty early.”
John Urdi, president and chief executive of Visit Huntington Beach, said the community should feel welcome at the event, per the Los Angeles Times. Huntington Beach residents can attend with valid identification for $15 per day, the same report notes. The festival takes place on the sand north of the pier and is headquartered at the Kimpton Shorebreak Resort.
The city's broader tourism economy dwarfs even the festival's eight-figure impact. Huntington Beach draws approximately 2.34 million visitors annually, generating an estimated $580 million in direct spending and supporting more than 5,600 local jobs, with the pier itself pulling in over 700,000 visitors a year, according to The Automators. The fitness festival joins other major beachfront draws at the pier, including the Lexus US Open of Surfing, which attracts up to 450,000 spectators over nine days, and the Pacific Airshow, which local tourism officials estimate produces more than $120 million in economic impact, per Voice of OC.
Battle Of The Camps Puts $214,000 On The Line
The competitive centerpiece of the weekend is the Battle of the Camps, a team format Gymreapers Wodapalooza introduced that pits four six-member teams — Brute, PRVN, Outcast and Training Think Tank — against each other across 11 events, per the Los Angeles Times. Each elite team fields three men and three women along with two team captains, and the competition mixes individual, team, women-only and men-only events, according to competition director Emily Reiman as reported by the Times.
The financial stakes are steep. The Battle of the Camps carries a total prize purse of $214,000, with $120,000 going to the first-place team — $20,000 per athlete — $48,000 for second, $24,000 for third and $12,000 for fourth, plus a dedicated $10,000 Lazar Đukić MVP award, according to the same reporting corroborated by The Morning Chalk Up.
Team rosters lean heavily on CrossFit Games talent. Team Brute is captained by James Sprague and Emma Lawson, Team PRVN by Olivia Kerstetter and Jay Crouch, and Anikha Greer captains Training Think Tank, per the Morning Chalk Up's reporting on the rosters. The Outcast squad, made up of unaffiliated athletes, includes a late addition in 24-year-old Jack Farlow, a CrossFit Games athlete from Ontario, Canada, who said being at sea level should help his breathing during competition, the Los Angeles Times reports.
Sponsors, Streaming And A Village Of Vendors
Gymreapers took over as the event's title sponsor for 2026 after a multi-year run by TYR Sport, though TYR returned in August as the official footwear sponsor for both the Huntington Beach and Miami Beach events, according to the Morning Chalk Up. Spanish athletic equipment brand Velites signed on as the official sponsor of jump ropes, grips and wrist wraps, supplying the specialized weighted jump ropes used in official competition heats, per Velites Sport. A vendor village will host more than 50 brands, and the festival features live music each night, with Zach Telandar performing Friday, Coastal on Saturday and The Fulltimers closing out Sunday, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Fans who can't make it to the beach have viewing options. Coverage of Wodapalooza and the SoCal Fitness Festival will air on the FloSports channel on Prime Video and on the Wodapalooza YouTube page, the Los Angeles Times reports. Separately, live broadcasts of the elite Battle of the Camps are streamed free on the FloElite YouTube channel, while watching the community division live requires a $30 monthly FloElite subscription, according to the Barbell Spin.
Beyond the athletes and cameras, the festival also runs on volunteer labor. Organizers offer volunteers daily gear kits, catered meals and access to a dedicated Volunteer Village lounge, with proceeds from a volunteer raffle going to the Make-A-Wish foundation, according to Wodapalooza.
