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Loon Getting RFID Gates

BenedictGomez

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I hate how these companies always try to say this is being done "for us".

I don't care what they do to increase efficiency or create new outlets for ancillary revenue, just dont assume your customers are stupid.
 

mbedle

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I hate how these companies always try to say this is being done "for us".

I don't care what they do to increase efficiency or create new outlets for ancillary revenue, just dont assume your customers are stupid.

What? what new outlet for ancillary revenue does this generate? And do you really believe that paper tickets is just as efficient at RFID?
 

machski

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I know one thing is, it will cut down on big ticket lines with Ikon passholders being able to go straight to the lift now. Wish Sunday River was getting them, the lines our friends with Ikons had to endure last year were nuts.

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Smellytele

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What? what new outlet for ancillary revenue does this generate? And do you really believe that paper tickets is just as efficient at RFID?
Well most places charge $5 to get the RFID card. Paper tickets may have cost something but they never came out charged you .05. And if you ski multiple places a year and not multiple times you end up with all these useless pieces of plastic.
 

mbedle

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Well most places charge $5 to get the RFID card. Paper tickets may have cost something but they never came out charged you .05. And if you ski multiple places a year and not multiple times you end up with all these useless pieces of plastic.

Useless I guess, unless you ski the same place again in the future. It's not like you have to replace them every year. My point I was trying to make is I don't feel in anyway that ski resorts are installing RFID systems to generate revenue off the 5 dollar charge for the card (I should have made that clearer in my original post). I do think that they provide some pretty good benefits for skiers - the fact that you no longer need to stand in line to get a lift ticket, can track all your runs, not have to worry about having cash or a credit card with you, look up wait times for lifts, etc. There is of course many benefits that ski areas get by using RFID, including a shit load of marketing data (missed this before in my original post, so yes they make revenue off of RFID systems), lift utilization information, skier visits data, skier traffic information, etc. And even some of those benefits could result in benefits for us. I would think that after a season of having a RFID system installed, operators would have enough data on lift utilization to make a determination for potential lift upgrades or additions.
 

BenedictGomez

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What? what new outlet for ancillary revenue does this generate?

I was going to respond, but it looks like you later answered your own question or learned about what ski areas do with RFID since then.

In any event, point is, RFID is not a benevolent & generous act to spread more sunshine & rainbows upon your day, it's a tool to help the resort make money. Either just be honest about it, or simply say nothing, but some resorts instead choose to pee-on-your-leg-and-tell-you-it's-raining, as if we're all idiots. It's annoying.
 

mbedle

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I was going to respond, but it looks like you later answered your own question or learned about what ski areas do with RFID since then.

In any event, point is, RFID is not a benevolent & generous act to spread more sunshine & rainbows upon your day, it's a tool to help the resort make money. Either just be honest about it, or simply say nothing, but some resorts instead choose to pee-on-your-leg-and-tell-you-it's-raining, as if we're all idiots. It's annoying.

Do you think that skiers benefit from RFID usage?
 

Newpylong

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I was going to respond, but it looks like you later answered your own question or learned about what ski areas do with RFID since then.

In any event, point is, RFID is not a benevolent & generous act to spread more sunshine & rainbows upon your day, it's a tool to help the resort make money. Either just be honest about it, or simply say nothing, but some resorts instead choose to pee-on-your-leg-and-tell-you-it's-raining, as if we're all idiots. It's annoying.

Not entirely accurate. RFID benefits both consumer and the hill.

It benefits the mountain be reducing labor costs long term, preventing theft, and by collecting metrics to later be used to make business decisions.

That said, RFID is extremely expensive to deploy. When I looked into it for our small hill it was around $30K for a couple hand helds and the back end plus badges. That's excluding infrastructure costs (power and comm). You can do the math how much it would then cost a large hill to do. They aren't likely going to see a ROI for a number of years.

For the consumer, it certainly cuts down on wait time and I personally appreciate everyone needing to pay for the same services that I did vs just sneak up.
 

deadheadskier

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Maybe it's just me, but it seems like the places that use RFID gates have a more difficult time sending the chairs up full. I frequently see people stuck at the gate or have had it happen to myself.

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thebigo

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Hope they can accommodate kids, lifting my daughter up to open the gate every run on superstar got old fast.
 

machski

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I think the ones the Boyne is looking at are long range RFID, so I am not sure if that will be an issue.
True, they supposedly have a better catch range with these. It also sounds like from an article Big Sky published on the gates, they will only be deployed at select lifts that are resort gateways. My guess with Loon is that they will only be at Gondola, Seven Bros, Kanc and Lincoln. Upper lifts won't get them nor will kissing cousin or little sister as they do not access any of the higher terrain. Easy launch for Boyne in the East. I would guess Sugarloaf next as it is the next easiest (Whiffletree, Double Runner, Superquad and West Mountain). SR is the most difficult with the two lower White Caps, Locke Triple, the Racing T-Bar, Barker, South Ridge, Chondi, North Peak and the Jordan express and Double all being access lifts.

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urungus

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Hope they can accommodate kids, lifting my daughter up to open the gate every run on superstar got old fast.

Awesome that you have a kid that small skiing Superstar. I’ve seen kids with their card taped to their helmet, have you tried that?
 

BenedictGomez

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Do you think that skiers benefit from RFID usage?

I am 100% certain ski resorts say skiers benefit from RFID usage.

In practice, I am extremely skeptical.

It seems to me that ironically RFID works best when there's a line-jockey ushering people in place, which is no different than olden times. In terms of the "benefit" of buying your lift ticket online, I think that's a pretty meager "benefit", and I speculate that the folks who are ecstatic about this are the same people who buy the new Iphone each-and-every September.
 

BenedictGomez

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Maybe it's just me, but it seems like the places that use RFID gates have a more difficult time sending the chairs up full. I frequently see people stuck at the gate or have had it happen to myself.

It's definitely not just you, and it's not solely from gate problems. When there's no attendant at RFID people go guerrilla tactics and ensure that their 2 or 3 person group goes up on the quad. Repeat this hundreds of times per day, and it must have an impact.
 

mbedle

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I am 100% certain ski resorts say skiers benefit from RFID usage.

In practice, I am extremely skeptical.

It seems to me that ironically RFID works best when there's a line-jockey ushering people in place, which is no different than olden times. In terms of the "benefit" of buying your lift ticket online, I think that's a pretty meager "benefit", and I speculate that the folks who are ecstatic about this are the same people who buy the new Iphone each-and-every September.

To each is own, but I don't want to go back to the days of waiting over an hour in a lift ticket line every morning?
 

machski

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Most places I've been with RFID at the busier lifts, they still have an attendant grouping people together and line control. Whatnot does is free up those employees from looking at passes. There is usually a second employee with an iPad or similar checking scans and assisting with issues at the gates. Seems to me that is the same amount of employees for the old fashioned ticket checking duties/line control.

It's a big advantage for the multi resort passes that have RFID tech embedded. Obviously a mountain on the pass needs to have compatible back office tech to mesh with the pass (IE Ikon) to give the multi pass direct to lift access. It is a royal pain at resorts that do not have that (Ex, Loon, SR, SL last season on Ikon). Ticket window lines to use your Ikon at SR were 45 minutes most weekends. Just nuts, when half or more of the customers could have been direct to lift with decent tech.

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