The closure was unannounced. Photo: The Wave
In the UK today, The Wave announced it was closing, indefinitely. The Bristol-based wave pool shut suddenly, cancelled bookings and most of its website was inoperable.
“I’ve been working with them for months and I’m pretty sure not many within the business knew this was going to happen,” said one UK surf industry insider, who preferred not to be named.
Now this is unusual when it comes to Wavepool announcements. Generally, they fall into one of two categories; just opened, or new development plans announced. And with Wavepool magazine stating there are 15 currently open (well, now 14), a dozen under construction, and 50 projects in the planning stages, you don’t have to wait long to see a new press release on a new project.
Bristol, however, was an early adopter. When it opened in 2019 it was the second commercial facility using the Wavegarden tech, after Snowdonia in Wales. And yet while many of the workers at the facility, and all those with bookings have been left largely in the dark, the financial issues had been circling for some time.
The Bristol Post reported that the company that operated the facility had gone into administration back in April. Nick Hounsfield, the man who founded the project back in 2017, also resigned from the board at the same time. The administrators published a 47-page report in May outlining how The Wave had struggled to repay loans and financing. It was effectively put up for sale with the plan to find new investors who could clear The Wave’s debts.
Now these things don’t come cheap. The initial investment was £26 million when it opened in 2019. In 2022, they announced a further investment deal with Sullivan Street Partners, for another £27 million, which was for debt financing and further expansion, which included the building of three new Wave Parks in the UK.
It is Sullivan Street Partners however who stopped the waves today. In a letter to employers seen by The Inertia, an email with the headline “Site Closure” stated that “we are hoping that this can be resolved very quickly, we will let you know if we will reopen on the 27th June, or whether the closure will be extended.”
That timeframe could be slightly optimistic, given the administrator’s report. It’s one of the first big wobbles in the established inland wave market, which has generally been portrayed as a commercial winner. The glossy brochures and videos of the top pros busting airs near their recently bought condominiums haven’t shown much sign of slowing down.
And yet it was surf writer Nick Carroll who once commented that, “There’s one hilarious business model in which hundreds of millions of dollars are being invested in the hope surfing will respond: wave pools. Never has so much been spent chasing so little.”
Whether The Wave’s closure and financial difficulty is evidence of that theory, or simply an exception due to local factors, is impossible to say. Either way, the pool will be still for the next few days, and maybe forever.
