Blair Conklin with a decent turn in a “fully-nuking” Palm Springs Surf Club. Photo: BeefsTV
Palm Springs Surf Club (PSSC) is back open to the public. As the Coachella Valley pool continues to pump out waves and shareable Instagram content, the short attention span of the internet might forget about the tumultuous series of openings and closures that defined the early part of 2024 for the Club.
But what happened with the pool anyway? PSSC vaguely stated that the wave pool was “down,” but stayed very tight-lipped publicly about what specifically went wrong. Maybe the company doesn’t owe anyone an exact explanation. But I, for one, am curious, as you can tell by my previous story fishing for answers among the wave pool grapevine. However, new tidbits of information surrounding the closures filtered out recently when Cheyne Magnusson, one of the partners behind the pool, spoke with Bryan Dickerson on Wave Pool Mag’s podcast.
Not only did Magnusson divulge new details about the technological problems they face, but he also gave an interesting take on the type of surfers that wave pools should view as cash cows. And, finally, he also revealed the location of two new surf parks in the U.S. If you don’t have an hour to listen to the podcast yourself, here are my four major takeaways from the conversation.
Why the pool kept breaking down
Dickerson gingerly broached the topic that we all wanted to know in the podcast: What was going on behind the scenes during the repeated closures and openings at PSSC?
Magnusson bluntly responded, saying, “It broke. When people ask me what broke, everything broke.”
“At least in this case, when something goes wrong in the equipment, it can become systemic,” Magnusson continued. “There can be one thing that is off and that causes a lot of other things downstream in the design to start breaking. That’s what happened. You have to identify what’s causing this to tweak out, the thing behind it to tweak out, then you have to assess it and get a host of opinions (from) tried and true engineers. Then you got to try it and test it.”
The conversation then angled towards the challenges of putting a pool through the type of testing that it will receive during commercial use – running it for 10 to 14 hours per day. It’s a process that Dickerson points out is very expensive when it has to be repeated due to high energy costs – especially if there is no associated income from patrons
Magnusson vented that the stress of the situation nearly caused him to walk away from the project multiple times and the relaunch gives him PTSD. But they are confident they have the technology straight now.
“Because we feel we’ve identified the source that was causing all of (the problems), we’ve been able to add extra protection, beef up certain components to handle what we are actually putting it through day in, day out from a commercial perspective,” said Magnusson. “That’s part of pioneering. That’s part of learning.”
Magnusson didn’t immediately respond to my request for further detail.
Wave pools make money from advanced surfers, not beginners
In their conversation, Dickerson presented a common theory among wave park management: Most profits will come via the beginner and intermediate sessions in a pool, not from advanced surfers.
The hypothesis made Magnusson crack up as he called it “hilarious.” He explained why the profits in his experience are actually coming from the advanced wave settings.
“The advanced surf market is where you’re going to have your most success and your highest repeat customer,” said Magnusson. “We’re addicts. If you think of surfing as a drug, the really good surfers that are passionate, that are willing to get on plane, fly over 24 hours, get on a bus in some third-world country to go to some break that they heard from a buddy… and sleep in a board bag all in the name of getting a perfect wave; what other humans are going to that length to get their fix? Drug addicts.”
“We are extreme about pursuing what makes us happy,” he added. “It’s a solid parallel.”
Magnusson goes on to tell an anecdote about his experience working with the Waco Surf pool where they phased out of the beginner sessions because they weren’t able to meet the increasing demand for the advanced waves.
“When (people are talking about) the ‘beginners, the beginners, the beginners,’ I don’t see it,” concluded Magnusson.
Will swells cause downturns in wave pool sessions?
Dickerson proceeded to pose another interesting question: Being so close to the ocean, will ocean conditions affect pool bookings?
Magnusson wonders the same thing but doesn’t think there is a big enough sample size yet to definitively take a side. Given that bookings often happen weeks in advance and swell conditions can only accurately be forecasted a few days out, he ponders out loud if there will be any correlation between firing ocean waves and pool sessions.
“There are so many elements of the ocean that you can’t predict,” said Magnusson. “The only thing I’ll say is you are not going to be competing for waves in your (pool) session. You know you are going to get 14-16 waves an hour. You are not going to get hassled. You are going to be able to focus on your surfing.”
Would you cancel your Palm Springs session if you saw six feet at 17 seconds marching toward the California coast? I would certainly consider rescheduling for a window post-swell if possible.
New pool locations
Those who made it to the final minute of the podcast were rewarded with a nugget of confidential information. We all know that the Oceanside pool is on the way, but Magnusson mentioned that he’s also got pool projects in the works in Las Vegas and Utah – previously unshared information as far as I’m aware.
He also said they have a “couple in Middle America” when he mentioned Utah, so maybe there are even more Palm Springs replicas on the docket.
