As I had two days to think about my experience at the Surf Ranch Pro, I contemplated how many positives and negatives should I list about the event.
While Surfer Magazine did a good job of going into their thoughts of judging and knowing Lemoore, I figured wtf… I’ll just say what I have to say.
Compared to the Founder’s Cup which brought a lot of non-surfer crowds, celebrities and others who wanted to see Kelly Slater’s awesome wave pool, this time around, we had those who cared about surfing, those who were curious and those who had free tickets given to them by their workplace.
Hotels were still sold out around the city of Lemoore and Hanford, except the rundown motels, but for months I have wondered and even asked a friend I grew up with who is now a city councilman if the city will do anything to promote the event to boost tourism or at least have people invest in the city, may it be restaurants or such.
I’ve know many events who have took advantage of an event and share the great news of the boost of the local economy thanks to an event but the city was quiet.
Sure, I know it costs money to print a guide to Lemoore or where to eat in Lemoore? But it still blows my mind that there was no promotion in the downtown area or anywhere in Lemoore. But then, it still blew my mind that Lemoore once had the slogan of “There’s More in Lemoore”, which was seen like a joke, because people knew back then, that it wasn’t true. I suppose if you try to look at it subjectively, the slogan back then could mean anything…weeds, fog, undeveloped land.
But that was then, Lemoore now has a large, growing Tachi Palace/Casino in the Indian reservation which brings in many bands and boxing matches. And if anything, they are doing so well that they can promote their events in newspaper publications and commercials.
Knowing that a wave pool is being developed in other areas, and talking with the Japanese media who were at the event, about the wave pool being created in Chiba for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, I wondered if the event would ever come back to Lemoore or 2018 is it.
I could see the appeal of having the event in different wave pool using similar or better technology and perhaps the turnout would be even better and shopping, restaurants would be more accessible.
Another thing is that Lemoore is unbearably hot during the summer. Fortunately the event was held in September as opposed to July or August because to be truthful, no one wants to go out in Lemoore when the temperatures are 100-115 degree F.
If one has to, just hope the venue provide adequate shading.
While parts of the Surf Ranch has shading thanks to trees one side, if you want to see another side, there are no trees.
There were bungalows with benches and shading for people who paid more money to sit there.
There were times when event staff were trying to tell people stay away from the walls, behind the concrete pavement and right there was already giving people a bitter taste of the matchup.
It’s one thing to not have great seats but for those who spent $99 for one day and more for multiple days and not get VIP seating, I often heard people really ticked by this.
By the afternoon, everyone got close to the walls, despite what event staff had to say.
But the sight after 1:00 p.m. looked like people who feared heat stroke, they were hot, they were trying to find shade, a cool place to sit, hoping that each wave would splash cold water their way.
While the food situation was much better, possibly because it wasn’t sold out like the Founders Cup back in May, I noticed a lot of vendors came very far from Belly Bombz from Artesia and a pizza place from the Central Coast. While I find that pretty cool, it made me wonder where the local vendors were? Not even one? But I think it’s all good to have vendors come that far but to add some variety, would be nice to have some of the cool local vendors sell their food. And if there was a danger of running out of items, no problem, it wouldn’t take them that long to go back to their store in town.
I thought it was cool that opposite of the wave pool, people were able to swim in the other lake. Helped make the Surf Ranch Pro a family event and gave children things to do.
It’s all good. I liked how the buses were upgraded from old yellow school bust to nicer charter buses and they did a magnificent job of getting people back and forth to the destination.
If anything, I liked how the prices were much less than the WSL store online and you don’t have to pay for shipping and handling. One of the pluses of purchasing at an event!
I liked how tickets were available near the front entrance. No online fee, just pay for your tickets and you were good to go!
But for the most part, I did enjoy my time at the event despite the intense heat and lack of shading at some areas of the Surf Ranch, a lot of those things can be fixed. There is unbearable Tokyo humidity and heat, which people will no doubt experience at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, but Lemoore heat, no humidity, just dry scorching heat. So glad that people were mindful and brought their sunscreen but there were those who didn’t and you knew they were sunburned in painful type of way.
There were improvements made since the Founders Cup back in May and that’s a plus. I know the place will want to grow but what the future plans are going to happen at the Surf Ranch, I don’t know, but I will say, I enjoyed my time there.
I hope to see more events, may it be concerts or even a surf film festival.
As for watching a surf competition at the Surf Ranch Pro, I would have to say, when the surf was on and seeing several surfers tear it up…that was great!
But truthfully, waiting for the waves kind of sucks but at the same time, I’ve been to surf events where you saw waves and then nothing. It’s the nature of surfing and things can become unpredictable. At least people knew that there would be a wait…
For wave pools, the main thing you worry about is moments that things don’t work and complicated maintenance and how long it would take to fix it? We saw it back in May and we saw a little bit of it at the Surf Ranch Pro.
While things aren’t perfect, we know that this technology is no doubt monumental and we may see more open in other locations in the future. And who knows, the future may produce a real-life Rick Kane??? No way brah.
