Bahrain Surf Park To Open 2026 – Interview With CEO Craig Stoddart
News just dropped of the first Wavegarden to open in the Middle East, slated for early 2026. We spoke with CEO Craig Stoddart for all the news. Craig was formerly CEO of The Wave Bristol and knows a thing or two about bringing a wave pool to life.
Craig, for context, please tell us about your personal surf industry journey to this point.
As almost the most unsupple human being on the planet, despite many efforts during my life, I had never succeeded with becoming a great surfer, despite enjoying all sorts of other water-sports. I am more of a bodyboarder now, having knackered a disk in my back a few years ago. But as we say, the best surfer is the one having the most fun.
I am a long-time friend of Nick Hounsfield, the visionary behind the Wave. We had dinner one night about 12 years ago and he told me all about his crazy idea to build a surf park. I was immediately hooked (who wouldn’t be!), but more by the economics of it; that there was a fundamental mismatch in the supply of surfable waves, the ever-increasing participation rates of surfing and the distance of populations from surfing beaches, whilst seeing the arrival of these technologies to fix this problem. I offered to help since I have a very broad professional background including building a successful start up, lots of funding deals, building high-performance teams and driving service quality in businesses. Nick started ringing me about twice a week, whilst I was doing a turnaround on a global security business that put men with guns on boats to protect against pirates – but that’s another story.
I then put some seed money in and became a non-exec advisor to Nick for about two years whilst he was fighting to get the land and planning permission, which we managed to help fund through a £250k crowdfunding campaign. During this period, I pulled together a proper detailed business plan, which showed we had to walk away from the original Wavegarden Lagoon technology as was installed in Snowdonia. This in my view was not investable. It didn’t provide a good enough surfer experience for all abilities nor enough revenue generating capacity to pay back the large capex. In addition to this, the engineering had too many single points of failure.
Nick managed to get the planning permission about the same time that I finished the security turnaround, and I said to my wife that I thought there was something in this and I should give it six months full time to see if we could raise the money. I then joined Nick full time and became CEO. Six months became twelve etc and that was about nine years ago. We switched to working with Tom Lochfeld from Surfloch, who is the grandfather of man-made waves. Tom invented Flowriders over 30 years ago and had started working on a larger scale wave generating technology for rolling waves. We pulled together an Investment Memo and set about raising the money to build it. We got an early £10m debt commitment from Downing VCT very early on, but the equity was a lot harder to raise mainly due to the fact that we couldn’t show anyone the technology – it didn’t exist at full scale at this stage. We were selling vapour. Anyway after eighteen months, Wavegarden got in touch and said they had resolved all the issues that we had fed back to them about their lagoon technology, and they had created an improved technology, called The Cove, and had the full scale waves ready to surf. We flew out to Spain with some of the keener investors that we had met, Nick Ashehov, a surf mad investor, and the CEO of a private wealth fund who had never surfed before and ended up surfing the 2m high wave at the back, screaming “where do I sign!”. We now had our investor.
It took about eight months to get the deal agreed, which was tricky since they didn’t normally invest in operating companies and I had to pretty much write the investment agreement myself and hold their hand through it. We broke ground in August 2018 and delivered the project on time and on budget, mostly because of our amazing project managers from Ward Williams, Fourteen months later in October 2019. Whilst the construction was going on, we had to build the operations from scratch, which included creating the largest surf school in the world, a large 160 seat bar & restaurant, a retail store and build a team of over 120 people. When we were commissioning the waves however, we realised that the intermediate waves were not performing how we thought they should, and at this stage we had already sold over 8,000 tickets and we were opening in a week. We did open with those waves and sadly had to cancel over 3,500 sessions after three days since it was clear it was not good enough. It was a really challenging period during those first few months in the middle of winter, we were losing £10k a day, we were learning on the job on how to operate the world’s first surf lake with this new technology, and we had tremendous pressure from our investors and our Board.
This culminated in Nick having a massive stroke which was a horrendous moment for him and his family, but it also hit the whole team hard. Then just as we were getting to grips with this news, COVID hit and we were forced to shut. I had to furlough over 120 people immediately, which was devastating and we had just loss our first season, when we were going to generate cash to enable us to complete the construction. We made payroll by £5k in April, and I had to totally focused on refinancing the business to survive, because we were saddled with huge debts. That first lockdown was bittersweet with Nick swimming in the lake fishing for algae, which was very much part his recovery, the weather was amazing so we were swimming every day, but we couldn’t open to let anyone else enjoy it. We squeaked through to July as we were opening up again, and I had to make a call as to whether to bring all the team back, since we only could pay them for two weeks if no-one came. Luckily, everyone was so desperate to get out, we were sold out solidly for three months and we were able to refinance the business before the second lockdown.
After the third lockdown, in 2021, we invited Jo Wicks for the weekend to try out our new Safari tents to thank him for his service to the nation. He posted on Instagram about it and we pretty much sold-out the whole summer in three days. We had a fantastic year and I told the Board and investors we should build five surf parks, and they all said ‘yes, Craig, that’s a brilliant idea!” I thought “what have I done”! So, we then set about finding new investors and starting to develop the London site and we closed a deal to sell a controlling stake to Sullivan Street partners in 2022. The same week we closed the deal, the Ukraine war hit, and power costs went up from £500k to £2m per annum overnight, construction costs went up 40% and the cost of living slowed down our bookings by about 20%. Luckily, we had already put in place our development of the solar array to power the site, but it wasn’t due to be complete for another year. As a result, the role out for London and other sites was immediately put on hold. At this stage, I’d reached almost total exhaustion, and realised it was time to take a break, so I talked it through with Sullivan Street, who were very supportive, and I agreed to help with a transition, before stepping down as CEO in Jan 2023. I am still a shareholder in The Wave, I love what they are continuing to deliver and am incredibly proud of what we all achieved.
I have since become CEO of this fantastic new Surf Park in Bahrain and I sit on the Board of the renewable energy consultants Syzygy, who helped build the solar array at The Wave.
The new Bahrain Surf Park – Club Hawaii Experience is one of the biggest stories in our industry right now now. Please can you give us the low down.
Following an introduction by Daniel Macaulay from Brandwave, I was approached by the Prime Ministers Office of Bahrain to help them build a surf park before I left The Wave. I couldn’t help them then because I was too busy, but immediately after I left in Jan 2023, Dan got back in touch. I’d never been to Bahrain before so I flew out to meet them and was so impressed with their vision, we immediately started working together. Bahrain is a wonderfully diverse country in the Middle East with a rich multi-cultural heritage dating back centuries.
The project is the centrepiece of a wider tourism development called Bilaj Al Jazayer (Bilaj Al Jazayer) on one of the most beautiful beaches on the west coast of Bahrain. Bahrain is fast becoming a destination for international tourists, and the Bahrain Surf Park – Club Hawaii Experience provides a great addition and reason to visit Bahrain.
The Bahrain Surf Park – Club Hawaii Experience will be the first Wavegarden project in the Middle East and will be the most inclusive surfing experience in the region. With its incredible year-round climate (it never drops below about 15 degrees C), we expect about 300,000 visitors a year to come and enjoy it.
What is the planned opening date?
We are planning opening by the end of 2025. Works on site have started and all the Wavegarden equipment is ready to be delivered to Bahrain. The main construction contract will start imminently.
Who are the key people/ parties involved in this project?
A project like this involves many stakeholders and people to deliver it. First of all, the most important stakeholder is the government of Bahrain who have driven this vision from the start. I am working directly with Edamah, who is the development arm of the government, and GFH who are the investment partners in the project. Wavegarden are obviously a key partner as well.
We have recruited a fabulous General Manager, called Victoria Williams, who has over 30 years of hospitality and leisure experience, including running the Chill Factore in Manchester and having worked for five years or so in Dubai. I have also brought in some other surf park veterans from Surf Collab, Bruno Gujer to run the construction and Mark Fessler to help set up the operations. We are a tight team and it’s so much easier having done it before!
Dan and the Brandwave team are doing an incredible job running all the marketing and they will help promote Bahrain Surf Park – Club Hawaii Experience locally and across the Middle East and internationally.
Bahrain is not known for its surf culture. How will you develop this?
Bahrain is an island nation with a long history and relationship with the sea. n fact, Bahrain actually means “Two seas”. There are even a few beaches where surfing does happen when the wind is just right. Also with Gulf Air, the national airline, Bahrain is a stepping stone for surfers from Europe going onto the surfing spots in South East Asia like Sri Lanka, The Maldives, India, Indonesia and the Philippines.
But we have to recognise that there are very few surfers currently locally or in the region. But this is the great thing about the Wavegarden technology. You can start surfing in your very first beginner session, and within months you can be surfing on the reef. I know we will create a great community of surfers in Bahrain, since once people get the bug, we fully expect people to make it a habit, much like you see in other surf parks around the world. We are going to create a Bahrain Surf Park – Club Hawaii Experience Federation as well, so that we can develop an elite group of surfers, who will hopefully go on to represent the nation in competitions around the world, maybe even the Olympics. Think Cool Runnings with surf boards!
What levels of surfers will the park cater for?
Bahrain Surf Park – Club Hawaii Experience will be open for people of all ages, backgrounds and abilities, just like at The Wave. We are intending to hold an international surf competition in our first year and who knows, maybe we can persuade some of the Formula 1 drivers like Lewis Hamilton, Lance Stroll and Mark Shumacher, who all surf to come along when they are there for the Bahrain F1. The core customer however will be very much local Bahrani and other people from the region. Bahrain is attached to Saudi Arabia by the King Al Fahd Causeway, and as such there are thousands of Saudis who come every weekend and holiday.
It will also be a place, where we want to teach swimming since there is a real need to increase water sport participation in the region. And of course, we will have thousands of kids coming and playing about in the waves as a stepping stone to their journey in surfing.
How does the park differ from other parks being developed in the area both physically and in terms of proposition?
The key difference is the technology and the vibe we will create. It will be the first Wavegarden in the region and as such it will be much more accessible for all levels of surfers than the Kelly Salter Wave in Abu Dhabi. It will also be a lot more affordable. Physically, it will be very similar to the Wave in Bristol, with the diamond shape lake at the heart of the facility. We will have fifty cabanas, a restaurant, a retail store and of course the surf academy. The main Clubhouse is beautifully designed with a spectacular roof terrace over looking the lake. We will be only 200m from the beach.
It is going to be very family orientated and we will be very much focusing on encouraging participation from everyone in the family who comes, including holding regular women-only sessions.
What are your plans post-opening?
Bahrain Surf Park – Club Hawaii Experience will become the best place to surf in the Middle East and we fully expect a lot of people to travel in from the other countries in the Middle East and further afield to enjoy Bahrain and the surf park. It will be a fabulous 2-3 day training stop over for all of Europe’s surfers travelling to Asia for their winter surf break.
By the time we open, we will have a full operational team in place and my team and I will step away from the day to day to let Victoria run the site after the first 3 months or so. I have agreed to support them as more of a non-executive support thereafter, since it’s a complex business to run.
I am currently advising three or four other surf parks and have just combined forces with Damon Tudor, who was the CEO of UrbnSurf in Australia until recently, having just finished opening UrbnSurf Sydney. As two of the most experienced people in the industry, we feel we have a lot to offer to help others deliver new surf parks around the world. We are also starting to work with some really big funders to help open up investment channels into the sector, since there are over 130 surf parks in development which all need funding.
What is your message to the surf industry?
Surfing is one of the fastest growing sports around the world and whilst a number of core surfers may feel like surf parks are going to bring too many people into this incredible sport and fill up their local spot, I really believe it can add so much value to so many people in terms of their overall physical and mental health and well-being. The learning curve for surfing is so much quicker in a surf lake that it democratises the sport. It also brings incredible smiles and you can feel the joy radiating off people who visit.
Following what we did at the Wave in terms of making it so accessible and sustainable, we of course need to do everything we can to make it sustainable and design these sites sensitively within their local environments. Overall I feel surf parks are a force for good in what can sometimes seem like a very challenging world.
For more information check out: www.bahrainsurfpark.com or email [email protected]
