The Industry View on Spring Skiing

BenedictGomez · Apr 5, 2015

Completely OT Masters story:

My entire family enters the Masters lottery for practice round tickets (mostly non-golfers forced to do so), and have done so for approximately 15 years. If I include friends, I could arrive at a number in the hundreds in terms of total entries, and we've had ONE winning entry (older brother) in all that time (2004). It's almost impossible.

raisingarizona · Apr 5, 2015

joshua segal said:
Unless you are a ski area marketing guy and have some serious numbers to back up what you said, your opinion is based on your trust of "the prevailing wisdom." And all I am saying is that the prevailing wisdom has never been tested.

I don't need to be a ski area marketing guy or do a study to be able to observe the blatantly obvious.

Cannonball · Apr 5, 2015

raisingarizona said:
I don't need to be a ski area marketing guy or do a study to be able to observe the blatantly obvious.

Finally somebody succinctly said what everybody's been try to explain. Nicely done.

dlague · Apr 6, 2015

I have just entered the no skiing zone of the year. My son's lacrosse season has started and he has a game middle of the day this coming Sunday and on going Sundays with occasional Saturdays. Now I am a Season Pass holder and I inclined to go for it that afternoon, however, no person who will have to pay will do that. To other's points - spring sports start to trump skiing, those with season passes may still make it up for a few hours but there is little lost for them and nothing really gained by the ski area.

Now, while my family is starting to get burned out, we will still get out for 5-8 more times but for the most part this is not the case for the general skiing public - exception, people on this forum or other similar forums.

Keep in mind across the entire skier/snowboarding community which is about 16.1 million the average numbers of days skiing is around 5 days per year. Everyone on this board does not fit the average profile, but ski areas depend on that average profile.

farlep99 · Apr 6, 2015

BenedictGomez said:
Completely OT Masters story:

My entire family enters the Masters lottery for practice round tickets (mostly non-golfers forced to do so), and have done so for approximately 15 years. If I include friends, I could arrive at a number in the hundreds in terms of total entries, and we've had ONE winning entry (older brother) in all that time (2004). It's almost impossible.

Weird hearing this- I entered lottery 2 years ago for the first time & won Monday practice round tix. Went last year for the first time, walked course for 2hrs & then everyone was thrown out because of storms. They refunded the ticket $ and guaranteed opportunity to buy practice round for this years Masters. So I leave tomorrow. Evidently I got really lucky

joshua segal · Apr 6, 2015

+ 1 to most of dlague's posting, but if the "fanatics" represent 5 to 10% of the skiing public, then there should be enough late season business to support 5 to 10% of the ski areas. Killington, Wildcat, Sugarloaf, Jay, Sugarbush and Sunday River; are the sum total of areas that even try for May.,(more like 2% of the northeast ski areas).

St. Bear · Apr 6, 2015

joshua segal said:
+ 1 to most of dlague's posting, but if the "fanatics" represent 5 to 10% of the skiing public, then there should be enough late season business to support 5 to 10% of the ski areas. Killington, Wildcat, Sugarloaf, Jay, Sugarbush and Sunday River; are the sum total of areas that even try for May.,(more like 2% of the northeast ski areas).

If you factor for location, I bet that % goes up drastically. You can't expect places in Southern New England to push for May, and even Southern NH/VT (Ragged, Gunstock, Bromley, etc) is highly unlikely.

VTKilarney · Apr 6, 2015

Ski areas are a business. If it was profitable for more ski areas to stay open later they would do so. If they would get a return on their marketing dollars they would market a longer season product. But they don't. It's been said many times in this thread that the market dwindles in April and May. As much as we wish it were not so, it is. Ski areas recognize that reality.

I also don't think that there is anything wrong with families pursuing a well rounded portfolio of recreational activities.

joshua segal · Apr 6, 2015

VTKilarney said:
Ski areas are a business. If it was profitable for more ski areas to stay open later they would do so. If they would get a return on their marketing dollars they would market a longer season product. But they don't. It's been said many times in this thread that the market dwindles in April and May. As much as we wish it were not so, it is. Ski areas recognize that reality.

You've gone full circle from my original posting. You're saying ski areas never marketed the spring product because they didn't (and don't) believe there is money to be made. I'm saying they never tried to market it, so we don't know if there is money to be made. (And when they have made the effort to market it, they do all right with pond skimming, spring carnivals, etc.)

VTKilarney · Apr 6, 2015

joshua segal said:
You're saying ski areas never marketed the spring product because they didn't (and don't) believe there is money to be made. I'm saying they never tried to market it, so we don't know if there is money to be made. (And when they have made the effort to market it, they do all right with pond skimming, spring carnivals, etc.)

Uhh... that's not at all what I am saying. I didn't say that ski areas have never tried to market their spring product. What I was trying to say is that I am sure they have the market figured out by now, and know when marketing dollars are wasted. I don't think these people are, generally speaking, as clueless as you think.

joshua segal · Apr 6, 2015

VTKilarney said:
Uhh... that's not at all what I am saying. I didn't say that ski areas have never tried to market their spring product. What I was trying to say is that I am sure they have the market figured out by now, and know when marketing dollars are wasted. I don't think these people are, generally speaking, as clueless as you think.

One of the reason so many ski areas are out of business is because you are giving the marketing guys credit for way too much. Most marketing people aren't that innovative and just repeat the tired old mistakes of their predecessors.

BenedictGomez · Apr 6, 2015

Saturday, March 29th - Smuggler's Notch had 15 to 18 minute lines at Madonna I & 10 minute lines at Sterling without recent snow.

Saturday, April 4th - Smuggler's Notch was ski-on all day on all lifts, and this was WITH 8" to 10" of fresh snow.

That's all I needed to see to remind myself that the average member of the skiing public "tunes out" in April.

deadheadskier · Apr 6, 2015

......and Smuggs had 2 for 1 lift ticket vouchers abundantly available in grocery stores here in the flat lands since the beginning of March. Hell, I offered to ship the vouchers to people free of charge if they wanted them and I found not one taker on this forum of "die hard" skiers.

Great product, cheap prices and people still don't show.

BenedictGomez · Apr 6, 2015

farlep99 said:
Weird hearing this- I entered lottery 2 years ago for the first time & won Monday practice round tix. .... Evidently I got really lucky

Extremely. I have a friend who runs an insurance office and has all the non-golfing employees enter on his behalf (about 50 people). He did this for a few years and none of them won.

Honestly, at roughly $180 to $250 a practice ticket, it's worth it just buying them on Stubhub in advance.

Bostonian · Apr 6, 2015

It sucks this time of year, since we are not the normal skiing public. As someone said here, there are those who log 5 days in a year and call it a season. Even at 20 days I am an anomaly to those, and you guys are just sheer fanatics (I good thing!). Hopefully, I will be able to ski with some of you guys again soon, since man I could learn a lot! But peoples focus is now on Baseball, Boats, Beaches and ugh summer. Time to get in as much skiing as I can before it all melts out!!

St. Bear · Apr 6, 2015

I think the viable options for a late spring push are so small.

You need:

High natural snowfall to build a good base (cross off everyone south of Killington)
Sustained cold temps to keep that base (crap shoot year to year)
Favorable latitude/elevation/aspect (cross off Waterville, Loon and Attitash)
Large enough population draw to justify staying open (cross off Saddleback)

After considering those factors, I think the only areas who don't stay open and reasonably could are Stowe and Bolton. Maybe you could make the argument that Cannon could go an extra week some years, but that's more recency bias, IMO.

dlague · Apr 6, 2015

I come from a family of 5 and of the 5, 4 have skiing families. My family is the only family still skiing. - the others have hung it up. So it goes for most.

Sent from my iPad using AlpineZone

Scruffy · Apr 6, 2015

joshua segal said:
One of the reason so many ski areas are out of business is because you are giving the marketing guys credit for way too much. Most marketing people aren't that innovative and just repeat the tired old mistakes of their predecessors.

You keep dragging that up, as if you personally have inside information on exactly why every ski area went out of business over the past 30 years or so, and you blame it on poor marketing. You couldn't sell steak and lobster to a finite group of people that have been gorging themselves on steak and lobster all week. At some point, people are full. Give it a rest.

Glenn · Apr 6, 2015

Savemeasammy said:
Most of the casual skiers don't care once it starts to warm up and the snow melts. They are ready to move on to other things.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

This.

And it blows my mind that people race to ski on the WROD, over twigs and leaves in marginal weather early season....but don't bother to come up when the mountain is practically 100% open, warm temps and the snow is soft.

dlague · Apr 6, 2015

Personally, I reach a form of depression around this time of year which sucks. Ski areas are closing and the end of season clock keeps ticking. Every time my family opts to do something other than skiing - I am a debbie downer. If it were not for me, my family probably would be moving on. However, for those who have reached finality, it is not even a second thought - they are done and I would bet it is a majority of the skiing/snowboarding population and while marketing might get a few extra visits but I do not think there would be a huge up tick.

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