O2 SURFTOWN Munich gets ready to open on the 10/11th August

02 SURFTOWN is getting ready to open its doors later this month, so Source sat down with Michi Mohr one of the founders,  to hear how Europes newest surf pool development is getting ready for the big day.

We last spoke September 2021, so can you bring us up to speed on where the project is now?

A lot has happened since then, we’re nearly finished with building the whole facility and the pool is filled with water. The building is nearly complete and we are finalising the inside, the kitchen is installed and the event space and shop space are almost ready. We are testing the water, as we have laws to obey in terms of safety and water quality in the pool. So that’s all being verified now.

Regarding construction, we have actually put a stainless-steel sheet on the bottom of the pool to make it last longer and to reduce the amount of concrete we needed. We know from some other surf pools that PVC liners require a lot of maintenance and we wanted to avoid this.

We’re in the commissioning and the testing process and are creating some quite nice waves already. We design different wave patterns which we record on the computer so we can reproduce them later, for example, we have a great intermediate split peak ready to go. That’s the fun part as we get some water time now we are in the testing phase.

 Can you give us any statistics, so people get an idea about the scale of the project? 

The facility is roughly 20,000 sq meters and the pool is around 10,000 sq meters and about 180 meters long. We have a big building taking up a most of the rest of the site, inside there is a shop, food and beverage area, an event space, showers, changing rooms, lockers and toilets. We will end up employing around 150 staff in the high season due to long opening hours.

What’s the capacity of the wave pool?

We can have 15 people at the same time in each of the four zones, so around 60 in total at one time in the pool. Every customer is guaranteed to get the opportunity to catch 12 waves during a session. Each session is a one hour experience in the water with roughly 56 minutes of surf time. The whole experience for beginners is close to two hours with a proper safety briefing and warm up and a debrief after the session.  In summer we will be open from 7am to 11pm.

How is the Whitewater West system performing? 

We’re the very first project to use this technology worldwide. There is another one under construction and I think they’re going to open later this year. Whitewater West is the market leader worldwide in water parks and we deal with their wave pool subsidiary, Endless Surf.  We have very good quality waves. Everything so far that we wanted to verify has worked well, but we are still in the middle of commissioning. We tried some crazy waves already, like the one with a double air section.

Do you exchange information with the other parks?

Yes, we do, such as regular talks with Bristol and Urban Surf in Melbourne. It’s a good exchange, because they’re far enough away, plus it’s in no one’s interest if other pools struggle or make big mistakes because it will damage the market as a whole.

Apart from Surfing what are your other income streams do you have?

We are focused on making turnover on every square meter of the facility. So we have a small core shop and a good sized food and beverage facility on the site. We expect business people to eat here during the day as the project is in the middle of a business park and within close proximity to the airport. In the evenings we can host big events. We have three fancy glass containers that you can rent for company meetings or for bigger parties. They are located around the pool, so you have a great view over everything that is going on in the water. Chris, the initiator and a partner in the project, has run a big event agency in Munich for more than thirty years, so we already knew that there’s substantial demand for an interesting facility to host corporate events.  In our shop we have surf equipment such as wetsuits, pads, leashes, fins and our own merchandise. For surfboards we have put together a portfolio that we think is going to work for the pool and we have the same portfolio in the rental space. So you can test the board and if you really like it, we have the same model in the shop for you to purchase. We also see interest from the industry to locate showrooms or offices close to us.

 What have you done to make the park sustainable? 

The area around here has always had a high groundwater table, which is why we had to raise the whole facility up three meters. We have our own well, plus we have got a really sophisticated circular system water treatment plant which we only really use when we have evaporation or are cleaning filters. Furthermore we have installed photovoltaic panels on the roof of both the technical building and the main building. 300 meters away from us, a partner company is building a large solar park to which we will have a direct connection. Locally produced power will be consumed locally whilst bringing thousands of people joy in the water.

Tell us about your key brand partnerships?

We have O2, the mobile network provider as our major partner, they have also their logo in the pool. In addition we have Tudor and Volkswagen. Rip Curl is an important supplier for us, and they have the main part of the shop  with wetsuits and wetsuit accessories and a small apparel selection.

Any kind of surprises, things you didn’t expect in terms of traffic and interest?

We know now that there is a lot of demand, in fact more demand than expected. It is coming from totally different directions, for example we have some Munich surfers who will probably come to surf twice a week. We saw on the heat maps of the people who bought the first surfing bundles that the demand is basically spread out all across Europe. So, basically, everyone with a good flight connection to Munich – as we’re so close to the airport – is a potential customer. But mostly it will be southern Germany, Switzerland, Austria and the Czech Republic. People are used to driving two hours for a good snowboarding day out, same counts for a surf. Demand comes also from professionals, national teams and surf associations.

We will try to offer a good experience for everyone. With the pneumatic air pressure system, with its different chambers, it’s basically like a piano; you push all the buttons and then five of them a little bit harder and suddenly you create a barrel or air-section. So this provides an endless amount of flexibility in programming the perfect wave pattern for every level.

What’s your view on the surf park market in Europe?

I’m sure the customer must be wondering why it’s developing so slowly. We talk with other park projects in Germany and Europe and many are facing problems, for example some projects on the coast are experiencing a backlash because people are questioning the sense of having a surf park right next to the ocean. Funding obviously is an issue but also permits can be difficult to obtain. You really must do your homework and have a proper concept for construction, sustainability and how you’re going to run the facility.

As far as I know there are a couple of projects coming up in Portugal, although none yet under construction. There’s Paris, Bordeaux and Saint-Jean-de-Luz in France that have been planned for a while and also Madrid and possibly Malaga. So apart from us only Edinburgh is going to open soon. In general, it’s harder than everyone thinks, and it takes years. In the States, Brazil and Australia there are a few parks under construction plus many in the pipeline.

So, how are you celebrating the opening?

The opening will be on the weekend of the 10/11th of August with the Opening Festival starting on the 10th for 2 days, the first day is invitatiion only and the second day sees the whole complex open to the pubic for the first time with surf shows, music and food trucks. From July 23, the booking calendar for surf sessions and surf courses will go online and the last discounted sessions can be purchased with the last vouchers available at   https://surftown.de/en/presale. Further information and updates are available on surftown.de/opening  See you on the 10th