With every boom comes a bust!
Today is Black Friday in the United States of America and I believe many other countries have taken up this ode to unchecked materialism as well. Do you celebrate with “door busters” etc. in Australia? Are stores running half-off cachaça sales in Brazil? Can overweight men be seen, right now, clubbing each other with loaded Harrods shopping bags in Jolly Old England?
I assume yes. But speaking of England, its newest wave tank at Bristol is up and running and I wonder how many of the United Kingdom’s surfers will find a day pass to The Wave under 2019’s Christmas tree? Or how many Victorians will find a BOGO coupon to Melbourne’s URBNSRF in their stocking hung by the chimney with care?
The wave tank explosion certainly is impressive and would have been impossible to foresee without Kelly Slater’s voodoo eyes a decade ago. There are so many that I can no longer keep them straight. Thankfully there is an online magazine dedicated solely to plungers, sleds, etc. and it is my pleasure to direct you toward Wave Pool Mag for all your curiosities and needs. They even have a wonderful podcast.
And I should be lobbing this question to them but it will be more fun to carry on ill-informed. Because as I see it, there is no way all the various technologies can stay viable and in business.
Take Surf Lakes, for example. After a botched preview ambassador/owners Barton Lynch and Mark Occy tried to get on the sled and reset but was anyone watching with URBNSURF coming online?
And while Kelly Slater and Co. bulldoze pristine land Australia, in an environmentally beneficial fashion, for their first open-to-the-public offering, Waco seems to still be firing right along with no end in sight. There’s going to be a private, members only facility in Palm Springs to compete with other Palm Springs pools but… the question I have for you, this Black Friday, the important matter for you to fully engage, is which facility will declare bankruptcy first?
Which glorious vision, millions in building, exciting marketing drawings etc. will be crumpled, shuttered and written off as a loss?
As a bonus question, which entire technology will first go into the dumpster? Or are the plungers, sleds, etc. all going to thrive?
They’re not all going to thrive. So which one will you be able to buy next year for free as long as you agree to haul it out?
Have fun shopping!
Yes, if you want to have a luxury experience that costs a lot of money then you DO need to work hard and make more money and make yourself successful.
Undoubtedly Surf Lakes 1st and KS Wave Co a close second (but Ziff seems to like to loose money so that’s a wild card there)! Surf Lakes is way too big of footprint (land costs too high), way to high of construction costs (33ft deep in middle and 10acres of concrete) and way to high of power costs (I heard it will take a 9MW power facility to deal with those huge spikes of power to lift the plunger for their biggest waves). KSWC is close behind with only a wave every 4 minutes (or 2 waves if they do the old WG model on their next venue with a wave on both sides). Surf Lakes only focus now seems to be raising money to stop the bleeding!
These wavepool wars remind me of VHS versus Beta. Sony Beta had the better product, but lost out to JVC’s VHS (apparently because you could get porn on VHS and not on Beta). We as potential end users shouldn’t expect the best product to win, just the one which has the lowest common denominator!
The scrap value of Srf Lkz must be pretty good. Is the pond concrete or poly over dirt?
Anyone seen JOBS latest vid?
Best tube vision ever.
That backdoor one is mad
There was a great surfer O’Brien
Looked like he was not even tryin’
In and out of a hole
With a GoPro on pole
Then saved a poor tourist from dyin’
Job is a bit of a knob.
But I like him.
The surf lakes recent clip of the boogie boarder getting piped on the left is pretty good, if only they could make it bigger.
Whatever happened to Webber’s pool?
Who is Webber?
We’ll theres Weber that make cool bbq’s then there’s another that shapes an talks a lot about awesome wavepools that never gets made
Maybe my brain functioning at under 2% too – but why really is WSL pushing Slaters tech when the wait time is at least 3 mins between waves?
The other pools make his sled redundant on the actual wave delivery mechanism, but they “plough ahead” as the WSL dream.
With global changes on our coastline to beaches and reefs the actual only tech that is relevant is Webbers (prob other stuff out there but haven’t looked) – t-reef, v-reef movable, semi movable stuff – where could both make epic waves and protect coastline. Or just more artificial reefs that will provide protection and habitat for fish species etc
Imagine how many spots would go off with that?
Exactly
Dump massive Gosford quarry sandstone slabs onto headlands.
yep – they could get whole ‘Roy stretch to pitch in protect their houses and make just one point wave northy to the roy – one right and one left the vals could meet in middle
It’s a good concept, ‘cept don’t underestimate the power of the sea to rearrange things, and sink heavy things down into depths of watery sand.
I reckon you could dump the rubble from all the buildings in Newy onto the south end of Stockton, and it will disappear within few years.
Does make yer wonder. As compared to the ferkoff financial and enviro cost of the tanks, reforming a few average points/breaks with sympathetically shaped chunks of concrete has to give a better return on investment. And, when the waters rise just add a few more at each end to extend the benefits.
We could call it upcycling and all of a sudden we’d sell concrete like gangbusters!
We tried this in Opunake, New Zealand. It’s a massive project and with heavy seas virtually impossible to complete perfectly.
Product is just one part of the sales equation, and being first to market is not as important.
For success I would look at who has the biggest marketing partner/affiliate network to continually get exposure to a large enough audience to drive sales while minimising advertising costs.
The Slater/ WSL/ Ziff combo looks almost unbeatable in that regard IMHO.
And don’t forget, they’ve had what, 3 years to dream up how to improve their wave?
Kelly blew minds when he released it. It’s still the only wave that doesn’t have a 2 second half life. I expect the Coolum Eco Train tank V2.0 to be better than the Lemoore.
Unfortunately it seems Webber can’t get off the ground, he doesn’t have the network to even raise the funds to build one.
The Plunger is just an outright terrible idea that I can’t believe got this far. Lol
Tech wise American Wave Machines modular bubble system is the “Dyson”of wave pools.
I hope they build a long enough pool to create a long wave to rival the Train, with variable sections on it.
The most un-ergonomic vacuum cleaner I ever had was a Dyson
They’re creative though. They’ve changed hand washing and drying, changed hair drying, floor fans etc. Pushing air Vs blades. I thought it was a very apt metaphor
I don’t know, they are decent vacuums. Seem to be innovative and ergonomic to me. But they sure do charge for that heap of plastic they built! Other brands at a better price point have definitely developed great alternatives at this point.
Everyone says surfing Kelly’s Petri dish is stressful.
Who needs to pay for stress
Noone is stressed at the bubble pools.
At 2.5k a wave you don’t want to fall off, but if they can get the price down the stress will diminish.
That depends on which ‘everyone’ you refer to.
Poor people want buffet.
Rich people want ala carte.
WSL/KSWAVECO will not survive. Not only is the biz model not viable with 15 waves per hour… but word on the street is the technology they use totally infringes on patents that supposedly Tom Lochtefeld owns but he just does not give a shit about enforcing them on the WSL because the plow tech is so old school and outdated…he doesn’t give a shit. WSL/KSWAVECO plow tech compared to what Lochtefeld has now is like comparing a flip phone with an iPhone.
…ok… thanks…
Please don’t confuse ‘business model’ with wave count though
Wave count is tied very closely to the business model. How can it not be? Anyone who is going to be spending money to go to these places wants to know how much is it going to cost me and how many waves can I expect a that price. It is very clearly tied to the business model.
They need to put a shopping mall there, it’s a no brainer. One half goes shopping while the other half goes surfing
It’s a no brainer
From amoeba
Technically, the question has already been answered since the NLand Wavegarden Lagoon in Texas closed and has since been purchased by the WSL to be transformed into a Surf Ranch facility. Otherwise, I’d have to say Surf Lakes out of the Big 4 currently on offer just due to the Mad Max look and feel of the joint. Also, in spite of the perfection of the wave, the Surf Ranch model may turn out to be too expensive to run for the general public, but probably will continue to be built for the ultra-rich country club set thanks to the perfection factor.
I am not sure about the dude that wrote this article. He seems to be confusing startup and RD costs with future buildout costs. It would seem that KSW/WSL are charging a high rate right now because they can so why not. However, now they have the tech and nothing about their set up looks like it would cost $30 million to build more. I would guess that number to be much, much lower and therefore future park fees will also be much much lower.
I bravely hit the play button on this video, but had to kill it after 17 seconds. The third video offered in the ‘more videos’ pop-up was titled; “Why did this Fail?”
Anyone who wants it can have the 2″x4″ I used as a small grom to generate waves… they just need to pay for the shipping and find their own puddle.
the real question is why has occ got a steamer in ya poon?
Maybe occy’s dead!!?
A stubby’s gone missing too.
Frankly, not a single fuck is given regarding wave pools, their successes or failures. I’m not likely to waste my time or money on one anytime soon, if ever. Like the vast majority of surfers, I’ll get my waves the natural way: in the ocean. This grumpy local cherishes the variety, unpredictability, and mystique of the sea.
Flowriders are still around…might be the most ubiquitous and cost effective man made wave.
Over 200 locations, even on cruise ships, and it’s a constant “wave.”
Emailed the Bristol wavepool asking when the promised headhigh waves will be available to the public. It sounds like never: “Due to the nature of the technology used for our lake, we are limited as the larger waves will affect the beginner’s sessions, indeed, it would be a health and safety hazard” It appears that’s how you make money as a wavepool, have enough waves for beginners. But also, healthy and safety hazard?! Is that the future of wavepool technology? Imagine, the potential for overhead barrels but health and safety gives us waisthigh wobble. I was beginning to warm to wavepools, they looked kinda fun, but that just demoted it back to lame as fuck status!
A casualty in a safety obsessed culture. Only hope is for one of these to open up in a country like Russia. Any non western liberal country would do.
Yeah, the bucks are in the lessons
But after Brexit they’ll be able to really crank it without fear of a Brussels smackdown, surely?
Given the cement floors of some of these pools, and the litigious nature of our society, I’m expecting to see helmets become compulsory equipment at wave pools. If the pros are hitting the bottom, imagine what the beginners will do
steam powered rusty donut plunger
Ever seen donuts being made? Mesmerising. Highlight of grade 4 for me.
My vote’s on Surf Lakes only because that youtube vid is literally called “The Official Corporate Video”. That’s the title I would have given my middle school AV class project where I had to create a promo video for a fictitious, horribly thought out, wave pool.