New Leadership at Surf Park Central and What Comes Next

By Jess Ponting

Well, they’ve really done it this time. My partners in this Surf Park Central venture asked me to step up and take on the CEO position a few weeks ago – life has kind of been a blur ever since. It seems like a bunch of exciting things have been happening all at once. 

In my new capacity at SPC, I attended the groundbreaking ceremony of DSRT Surf in Palm Desert. I’ll have a full account for you soon, including interviews I conducted with John Luff, Blake Hess, Dave Hilts (Founder of the Coachella Valley Surf Club), Cheyne Magnusson, and Andy Ainscough.

The DSRT Surf Groundbreaking L to R. Zephyr Ainscough, Jess Ponting, Andy Ainscough, Doug Sheres, Cheyne Magnusson, John Luff, Blake Hess.

Dallas Developers Tour

The Surf Park Central team heads to Texas this week to host the Dallas Developers Tour presented by citywave. On day one the tour will take a deep dive into the soon-to-open citywave facility Goodsurf with citywave USA owner Andrew Limbocker and citywave global CEO Rainer Klimaschewski. On day two, Billy Adams and Patton Nix, owners of the recently opened Fireside Surf, will walk us through their journey before a surf session. Finally, for the hardiest among the group, we make the trek down to Waco for a late night surf session at Waco Surf. SPC plans to expand these regional events in the US and globally. If you are interested in hosting a regional Surf Park Central event at your surf park, please reach out to us.

Call for Papers

Surf Park Central is launching an industry journal – the Surf Park Business Review. This is an electronic journal of international scope for the surf park industry, edited and administered by Surf Park Central. 

The journal provides articles written by and catering to the information needs of surf park developers, operators and operations managers, investors, suppliers of hard goods, professional services providers, etc., in the surf park industry. Articles share emerging best practices, case studies, innovations, research, and data. Readers are provided with actionable information through articles that also act as lead-generation drivers for authors by establishing them as authorities in their fields of work.

Surf Park Business Review articles will be published on Surf Park Central’s Insiders platform and abstracts will appear in bi-monthly Surf Park Central community emails and in the website newsfeed. 

Surf Park Business Review – Author Submission Guidelines

Authors should send an expression of interest along with 3-5 topic ideas to the editor at [email protected]  The editor will work with authors to select topics to avoid overlap with other recent authors. Multiple topics may be selected to be pursued over several journal editions.

Once topics have been agreed upon, authors should submit their manuscripts in MS Word format 12pt font, double-spaced and be between 1500 and 2500 words, including references. References should be in APA style. Longer articles will be entertained upon request. American or UK English is acceptable as long as use is consistent throughout the article. Articles should clearly state which currencies are being used to demonstrate values and what units of measurement are being employed.

A separate cover page should be included that includes the name, title, affiliation, contact details, a 250-word bio and a high-resolution headshot in jpeg format of the author(s). The cover page should also include a 100-150 word summary of the article and up to 6 keywords.

The SPBR audience spans a range of professional disciplines, please refrain from using profession-specific jargon, or if you must, please provide definitions, glossary, or explanatory footnotes as necessary to allow all readers access to your information.

Please keep bullet points to a minimum. Images, tables, figures, and models are encouraged but must be high resolution.

Work must be original and not have been submitted for publication elsewhere.

Submitted work must be based on primary research, facts, data and or case studies.  This is not a forum for advertorial, opinion pieces or articles designed to injure individuals or companies. All submissions will be peer reviewed, submission is not a guarantee of publication. Articles will be accepted as is, accepted pending minor changes, accepted pending major changes, or rejected. Constructive feedback will be provided for those submissions not immediately accepted.

Potential topic areas might include but are in no way limited to the nexus of surf parks and:

• Adaptive surfing and surf therapy
• Action sports crossovers
• Adding value through surf culture and heritage
• Advertising
• Architecture
• Booking software
• Cable park learnings
• Carbon offsetting
• Community building
• Concrete Innovation
• Construction
• Design
• Employee skills training
• Entitlements process
• Feasibility studies
• Finance
• General Contracting
• Geo-technical analysis
• High performance training
• Hotel Attraction Business Models
• HR in the surf park space
• Institutional capital
• Insurance
• Lagoon Solutions
• Marketing
• Market research
• New surf park culture
• Onsite events
• Onsite storage services
• Operations Management
• Pre-development work
• Preventative maintenance
• Private Club Business Models
• Programming
• Public perceptions and PR management
• Real Estate Development
• Rental equipment services
• Reinvigorating retail malls
• Renewable Energy
• Risk management
• Skate park activations
• Ski industry learnings
• Sustainability
• Surf conservation and activism
• Surf industry partnerships
• Themed Attraction Business Models
• Video capture
• Water Conservation
• Water filtration and treatment
• Water parks
• Wave generation technologies

I look forward to hearing from many of you with ideas for articles.