Photo: PSSC
The Palm Springs Surf Club (PSSC) will soon be open for business. The long-awaited artificial wave pool is currently preparing to officially open its doors to the public on January 1, 2024, according to a press release from the club.
The opening will be the culmination of a long and twisting endeavor. Back in 2018, Cheyne Magnusson and Kalani Robb partnered with James Dunlop to transform the original Wet ‘N’ Wild waterpark in Palm Springs, California into a prototype. In 2019, the test pool was successfully built, after which investor and tech executive Vinny Smith was invited on board (he in turn brought in hotel developers Tim and Colin O’Byrne).
At that point, the hype machine started with public announcements that the local planning commission had approved development and a planned 2020 opening. However, a little thing called COVID happened and the opening date got pushed back. In 2020 we started to see the first clips of the pool in action, with an edit from Mason and Coco Ho, another one with Jamie O’Brien and Casey Neistat, and an appearance in Dylan Graves’ Weird Waves series. After the second planned opening timeline of 2021 came and went, updates became scarce. Then, in July of this year, social media posts showed the founders turning the water on in the facility and a Fall 2023 release was announced. Now, with this latest update, it looks like we’re very close to actually seeing the full-fledged wave in action.
Photo: PSSC
“Opening The Palm Springs Surf Club marks the realization of a dream that was once unimaginable – catching waves in the desert,” said Smith in a press release from PSSC. “We have assembled a passionate team to create an extraordinary space that will provide world-class entertainment and bring together people from within and beyond the surf community. Much appreciation goes out to the hundreds of people who worked on the site over the past couple of years. This team took a dilapidated park that was built in the late 1970s and created what you see today. To make things even more challenging, Cheyne, Tim and Colin drove this effort during the COVID years, an extremely difficult time to complete such a huge project.”
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The facility uses pneumatic wave technology created by Tom Lochtefeld, the founder of Surfloch Wave Systems. The pool offers on-demand, customizable waves ranging from two to seven feet, and can accommodate up to 25 surfers simultaneously. By all accounts, the thing’s a beast. Snapt creator Logan Dulien even told The Inertia he’s dubbed it the “heaviest pool slab ever.”
In addition to surfing, the 21-acre facility offers dining venues, waterslides, lounge pools, a lazy river, indoor/outdoor event venues, and a social club with bottle service and a viewing deck. The entire endeavor has also been designed to minimize the environmental impact to the surrounding water-parched environment. PSSC officials claim the facility uses one percent of the water volume required by a typical golf course while generating over 70 percent of its energy resources in-house.
Photo: PSSC
Reservations are already available for booking on the website, for those who want to see what the fuss is all about after the new year rolls around. Each one-hour session can be booked individually and will cost $100 for the beginner wave, $150 for intermediate, and $200 for advanced. Sessions on the beginner and intermediate waves will have 12 surfers in the water and the advanced wave will have 9. Entry to the park starts at $20 and grants access to the lounge near the wave pool or any other of the spots set up around the park.
