January 01, 2006

Indoor Surfing Comes to BC

Constructing an indoor surf park in Vancouver has been bouncing around in my head for a couple of years. A standing wave where beginners to advanced riders could surf anytime they wanted. Well, I have decided that 2006 will be the year that I either pursue this dream or drop it altogether.

First things first, I needed a name. I came up with "Wave Cave", a fitting name for an indoor surf park... me thinks.

Over the next few months I will be completing my market research and plugging in the real revenue numbers answering questions like.. "Can a stand alone surf pool make it in BC and where?".

I have had several good discussions with Lew Wemple over at ADG, the N.A. distributor for Flowrider, and Andrew Thatcher at Wave Loch. They provided me with some great information. Now I have the minimum operating costs and cost for the equipment. By researching others operating the equipment and seeing what they are charging, I can put together the basis of a revenue Performa spreadsheet. They also provided some much needed insight into what makes a Flowrider attraction so appealing.

Duncan City is also looking into this indoor surf pool concept, tossing around the idea of bringing on a Flowrider. Flowriders are pretty much the de-facto standing wave for body boarding an surfing these days and will probably be what ends up in the Wave Cave concept I have. In this news clip they mentioned it would not be ready for another 2 years, considering that was published around April 2005 that would mean Spring/Summer 2007.

There is a Flowrider being installed on a Royal Caribbean Cruise ship and their ad campaign has certainly helped raise awareness.

The Flowrider is not the only Surf park attraction that is gaining momentum. Kerry Black founding director at ASR has landed a massive deal in building a huge surf park in Orlando. CNN covered it back in July '05. With the help from a few investors and their 9+ Million bucks the Ron Jon Surf Park is soon becoming a reality.

For what I am looking to do the Flowrider seems to make the most sense.

It's going to be fun traveling around to the standing waves, surf parks, beaches and shops to complete this initial research. I hope to include some podcasts of recorded interviews and phone conversations here as I make my rounds.

Posted by erik at 04:25 PM | Comments (0)