“Public relations cannot be treated as a late-stage marketing function. In this space, it is an approval strategy.”
By Brian Chandler, APR – Founder & CEO
Surf park projects are not getting voted down because the waves do not work. They are failing because developers wait too long to explain what they are building, why it matters and how it fits into the community.
We are now seeing a pattern. Projects move confidently through site selection, engineering and financing, only to stall or collapse once public opposition takes hold. A recent example from Newport Beach, CA (Snug Harbor Surf Park) shows this clearly: after the city council initially approved a wave pool component of a surf park proposal, residents submitted thousands of verified signatures challenging the decision. Rather than proceeding to a public vote, council members rescinded the expanded approval, scaling back the project’s footprint, underscoring how quickly public sentiment can shift without proactive communication.
This is not an isolated case. It is becoming a recurring issue across the surf park and wave facility industry.
That reality was the focus of my recent opinion column published in Wave Pool Magazine. The argument was straightforward. Public relations cannot be treated as a late-stage marketing function. In this space, it is an approval strategy. When I reached out to Wave Pool Mag Editor Bryan Dickerson inquiring about writing an article regarding the need for PR in the industry, his response was literally:
“I have been telling my PR friends that the space really needs a dedicated firm.
Especially after Coral Mountain. We’d be happy to run something. What are you thinking?
PR Is Not Promotion, It Is Advocacy
Surf parks trigger real and predictable questions. Land use. Water. Noise. Traffic. Tourism. Community character. When those questions are not addressed early, they do not disappear. They harden.
Effective PR at the development stage is not about hype. It is about credibility. It is about engaging stakeholders before meetings turn adversarial and before elected officials feel boxed in by public pressure.
Once a project is behind the eight ball, communications shifts from shaping understanding to attempting damage control. That is a far more difficult position, and often an unsuccessful one.
The Cost of Waiting Is Higher Than the Cost of Acting Early
When developers delay communications, they lose the ability to set context. Media coverage becomes reactive. Public meetings become emotional. Decision-makers become cautious.
At that point, even well-designed projects struggle to regain momentum.
The projects that succeed tend to do one thing differently. They treat communications as a core discipline alongside engineering and finance. They engage early, listen early and explain early. That work creates space for support long before a vote is scheduled.
This Is Where the Industry Has to Evolve
At Commonwealth Public Relations, we are actively working in the surf park space and tracking where projects succeed and where they fail. The column in Wave Pool Magazine reflects what many developers are now, unfortunately, learning in real time. Surf parks do not fail because of a lack of innovation. They fail because the story is not told soon enough, or clearly enough, to the people who matter most so they become advocates.
PR cannot be the last call made before a public hearing. By then, the outcome is often already set.
If you are developing a surf park and want to avoid learning this lesson the hard way, early strategic communications can materially change the trajectory of a project. If you are already navigating resistance or a challenging approval process, timing matters more than ever. I am always open to a conversation and can be reached at surfparkpr@commonwealth-pr.com.
