Results are in for the Surf Park Awards
After the panels, debates and announcements that filled the Surf Park Summit agenda in San Diego on October 4th and 5, the conference hosts announced the winners of the inaugural Surf Park Awards.
The awards were based on a public poll of ~2000 surfers. Participants were asked to compare modern surf parks and wave making technologies that had publicly available video clips of people surfing their waves. Some of the results were surprising.
The award for Most Appealing Surf Park Destination went to URBNSurf in Melbourne. While some expected The WSL Ranch in Lemoore to win based on its “perfect” wave and white glove service, clearly the consumer-voters felt that price plays a big part in “appeal”.
Similarly the award for Most Appealing Wave Technology went to Wavegarden Cove. The wave tech from Kelly Slater Wave Co. that runs The Ranch received a respectable portion of the popularity votes, but the Wavegarden Cove tech came out on top. The marketing/PR team at Wavegarden has done a stellar job educating the public on the benefits of their technology
Other winners included:
- Most appealing for Beginners & Intermediates – URBNSurf
- Most appealing for High Performance Surfing – WSL Surf Ranch
- Most appealing Surf Park Amenities – URBNSurf
- Most appealing Deep Water Standing Wave – City Wave
URBNSurf clearly did well, and Damon Tudor was gracious in his remote acceptance speech.
Wavegarden also did well. Sean Young, Head of Development at Wavegarden released a new promo video at the award ceremony.
