catskillman
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LEAKED: Epic Pass Price Cut by 20%
The Denver Post had a story queued up on embargo this morning when Vail decided to delay their announcement by one day due to the tragic mass shooting in their community. This story was cached by Google, and while the full cache has been removed, Google still displays the summary in the search results and I consider that to be confirmed as to the basic facts, but the full text of the article was only recoverable from a Reddit thread and cannot be confirmed in it's entirety. The full story appears below this introduction.
This article claims that Vail Resorts is reducing the price of the full Epic Pass by $196, and the Epic Local Pass by $146. That's significant. The full Epic Pass will start off at $783, and the Epic Local Pass will start at $583.
What this story doesn't detail however is the company's direction when it comes to regional pass products such as the Northeast Value Pass and the Northeast Weekday Value Pass. The price cut makes the Epic Local Pass cheaper than the Northeast Value Pass was last season, but not the Northeast Weekday Value Pass. If that pass was eliminated, a number of Northeast passholders on the weekday pass product would actually end up paying more, though overall most Epic Pass holders would be paying less.
This move by Vail continues two main strategies; 1) sell on value, and 2) lock as many people in as possible on passes. The obvious question though is whether people will want to go ski at a resort that looks like a Walmart at midnight on Black Friday. Surely a record number of people will next season at least.
=========== Cached Story Below ===========
Epic Pass Price Slashed 20% for 2021-2022 Ski Season
The duel between ski industry titans over season pass sales took a stunning turn Tuesday when Vail Resorts announced that prices for next season’s Epic Passes will be 20% lower than what it charged for those passes this season.
The Epic Pass for next season, which goes on sale Tuesday, is priced at $783. That’s $196 less than the 2020-21 Epic Pass when it went on sale a year ago, and $216 less than rival Ikon Pass is charging for a comparable 2021-22 season pass. Ikon announced its 2021-22 prices on March 11.
The more limited Epic Local Pass is priced at $583, which is $146 lower than last year’s price of $729. Ikon is charging $729 for its comparable 2021-22 product, the Ikon Base Pass.
Both Vail Resorts and rival Alterra Mountain Co. (Ikon Pass) are headquartered in metro Denver, and there was no immediate response from Alterra to Vail’s escalation in the season pass wars. Epic passes haven’t been this cheap since the 2015-16 season, when the Epic Pass was good at only 11 U.S resorts. Now it’s good at six resorts in Colorado alone, and more than 70 destinations around the world.
“The main driver here is, we want to move ticket buyers to a pass,” Vail Resorts chief executive Rob Katz said in an interview. “That has been a strategy of ours going all the way back to the introduction of the Epic Pass back in 2008. We’ve made huge inroads on this front. We started looking at some of our learning over the last couple years, and we thought we could actually reduce the price, bring more people into the program, and actually have it be profitable and a good decision for the company.”
Katz said Epic Pass sales for the 2020-21 season were strong, helping the company withstand the challenges that came with COVID-19 capacity restrictions and the reservations system it employed to control numbers on its mountains. That helped drive the price cut for next season’s passes.
“We’re not cutting the price of a lift ticket,” Katz said. “We’re cutting the price of a pass, which means you have to buy it before the season. That, we believe, is the crux of how you ensure stability and economic prosperity for the entire skiing and riding ecosystem.
Katz said Vail Resorts sold 1.4 million Epic Passes for this season. That meant lots of money in the bank before the first snowflake fell. That triggered us to say, ‘We’re doubling down on this strategy,’ Katz said. “We think skiers and riders can be the beneficiaries. It’s actually making a great trade with our guests to say, ‘Hey, we’re going to keep providing you more and more value to help us make this business and this industry more successful.'”
Vail Resorts business declined this season because of the pandemic, which included operating lifts at 50% capacity or less. Katz sent a letter to pass holders last week, saying the company does not plan to use a reservations system next season.
“Obviously this year was not as good as previous years,” Katz said. “But given the environment that we were operating in, and all the challenges that we all faced around COVID, we feel like this year has been absolutely successful. I think it’s been due to a few things. One is pass sales, which was very strong going into this year.”
Epic passes are good at all resorts owned by Vail Resorts as well as “partner” resorts owned by other companies. Those destinations include Telluride, Sun Valley in Idaho and Snowbasin in Utah. Ikon Passes are good at Alterra mountains, including Winter Park and Steamboat in Colorado, as well as partner resorts that include Aspen Snowmass, Copper Mountain, Arapahoe Basin and Eldora.
The Denver Post had a story queued up on embargo this morning when Vail decided to delay their announcement by one day due to the tragic mass shooting in their community. This story was cached by Google, and while the full cache has been removed, Google still displays the summary in the search results and I consider that to be confirmed as to the basic facts, but the full text of the article was only recoverable from a Reddit thread and cannot be confirmed in it's entirety. The full story appears below this introduction.
This article claims that Vail Resorts is reducing the price of the full Epic Pass by $196, and the Epic Local Pass by $146. That's significant. The full Epic Pass will start off at $783, and the Epic Local Pass will start at $583.
What this story doesn't detail however is the company's direction when it comes to regional pass products such as the Northeast Value Pass and the Northeast Weekday Value Pass. The price cut makes the Epic Local Pass cheaper than the Northeast Value Pass was last season, but not the Northeast Weekday Value Pass. If that pass was eliminated, a number of Northeast passholders on the weekday pass product would actually end up paying more, though overall most Epic Pass holders would be paying less.
This move by Vail continues two main strategies; 1) sell on value, and 2) lock as many people in as possible on passes. The obvious question though is whether people will want to go ski at a resort that looks like a Walmart at midnight on Black Friday. Surely a record number of people will next season at least.
=========== Cached Story Below ===========
Epic Pass Price Slashed 20% for 2021-2022 Ski Season
The duel between ski industry titans over season pass sales took a stunning turn Tuesday when Vail Resorts announced that prices for next season’s Epic Passes will be 20% lower than what it charged for those passes this season.
The Epic Pass for next season, which goes on sale Tuesday, is priced at $783. That’s $196 less than the 2020-21 Epic Pass when it went on sale a year ago, and $216 less than rival Ikon Pass is charging for a comparable 2021-22 season pass. Ikon announced its 2021-22 prices on March 11.
The more limited Epic Local Pass is priced at $583, which is $146 lower than last year’s price of $729. Ikon is charging $729 for its comparable 2021-22 product, the Ikon Base Pass.
Both Vail Resorts and rival Alterra Mountain Co. (Ikon Pass) are headquartered in metro Denver, and there was no immediate response from Alterra to Vail’s escalation in the season pass wars. Epic passes haven’t been this cheap since the 2015-16 season, when the Epic Pass was good at only 11 U.S resorts. Now it’s good at six resorts in Colorado alone, and more than 70 destinations around the world.
“The main driver here is, we want to move ticket buyers to a pass,” Vail Resorts chief executive Rob Katz said in an interview. “That has been a strategy of ours going all the way back to the introduction of the Epic Pass back in 2008. We’ve made huge inroads on this front. We started looking at some of our learning over the last couple years, and we thought we could actually reduce the price, bring more people into the program, and actually have it be profitable and a good decision for the company.”
Katz said Epic Pass sales for the 2020-21 season were strong, helping the company withstand the challenges that came with COVID-19 capacity restrictions and the reservations system it employed to control numbers on its mountains. That helped drive the price cut for next season’s passes.
“We’re not cutting the price of a lift ticket,” Katz said. “We’re cutting the price of a pass, which means you have to buy it before the season. That, we believe, is the crux of how you ensure stability and economic prosperity for the entire skiing and riding ecosystem.
Katz said Vail Resorts sold 1.4 million Epic Passes for this season. That meant lots of money in the bank before the first snowflake fell. That triggered us to say, ‘We’re doubling down on this strategy,’ Katz said. “We think skiers and riders can be the beneficiaries. It’s actually making a great trade with our guests to say, ‘Hey, we’re going to keep providing you more and more value to help us make this business and this industry more successful.'”
Vail Resorts business declined this season because of the pandemic, which included operating lifts at 50% capacity or less. Katz sent a letter to pass holders last week, saying the company does not plan to use a reservations system next season.
“Obviously this year was not as good as previous years,” Katz said. “But given the environment that we were operating in, and all the challenges that we all faced around COVID, we feel like this year has been absolutely successful. I think it’s been due to a few things. One is pass sales, which was very strong going into this year.”
Epic passes are good at all resorts owned by Vail Resorts as well as “partner” resorts owned by other companies. Those destinations include Telluride, Sun Valley in Idaho and Snowbasin in Utah. Ikon Passes are good at Alterra mountains, including Winter Park and Steamboat in Colorado, as well as partner resorts that include Aspen Snowmass, Copper Mountain, Arapahoe Basin and Eldora.
