Killington snowmaking to start Oct. 26th, plus misc hype....

[Highway Star]

Good news, I like it! I hope this is the path Powdr will follow in terms of early season snowmaking. Just made reservations at the Happy Bear Motel in February, my girlfriend has been wanting to go to K for years and this is the year. Now I just need cheaper tickets! ;-)

You know there's a $50 ticket deal, right?

 

[Highway Star]

Not when either of you 2 have been alive though

I've personally skied there in early October.

 

[drjeff]

I've personally skied there in early October.

But not on 10/1 I'm guessing. And I'm old enough to remember that K brochure in the years following that that had a pic of Upper Cascade all snow covered with the caption of "October 1st, looks like real snow because it is real snow"

 

[Highway Star]

They cpuld open earlier if they just went for a run on The Northface with up/down loading via The Grand Summit Express. However, their plan, which I like for opening now is to basically turn on the majority of their fan guns and open with a top to bottom run on the main face (usually Upper Canyon to Standard) and ATLEAST 1 top to bottom park (if not 2) at carinthia. Bottomline, is after opening day in this modern era, what keeps folks coming back to buy tickets until the majority of the Northeast opens up is/are parks and by focusing their efforts on them, Mount Snow sells a bunch of early season daytickets, which then leads to more in season and late season tickets.

I agree that the Mount Snow opening sounds very appealing, and the Killington openings of the last few years have been excellent as well. Problem is, they are in mid-November on average. Anyone who takes themselves remotely seriously as a skier is out skiing then, and they draw big crowds.

If you want to be the dominant resort in the east, like Killington used to be, you need to open before everyone else, so you're the only game in town, and everyone knows it. Even if it's just one or two trails. You get the diehards showing up from all over the east, buying day tickets, and you get loyalty from your passholders. Same thing applies to spring skiing.

 

[Highway Star]

But not on 10/1 I'm guessing. And I'm old enough to remember that K brochure in the years following that that had a pic of Upper Cascade all snow covered with the caption of "October 1st, looks like real snow because it is real snow"

They opened early october many (most?) times in the 80's and 90's.

 

[RootDKJ]

For the record.

​

VICTORY!!
​

 

[Johnskiismore]

You know there's a $50 ticket deal, right?

No I don't, please feed me some info! Thank you

 

[Tyrolean_skier]

No I don't, please feed me some info! Thank you

Go to this link:

http://www.killington.com/summer/plan/Deal Grabber/index.html

 

[ski_resort_observer]

They opened early october many (most?) times in the 80's and 90's.

Yea but this ain't the 80's or 90's. Let it go. Costs based on business levels is the manta now.

 

[deadheadskier]

Yea but this ain't the 80's or 90's. Let it go. Costs based on business levels is the manta now.

agreed

Sugarbush has the best set up in the east for opening early or late on Mount Ellen. If the return was worth opening in October or closing in June, I'm sure win would go for it.

ski areas first and foremost are businesses. all about the Benjamin.

 

[WWF-VT]

I agree that the Mount Snow opening sounds very appealing, and the Killington openings of the last few years have been excellent as well. Problem is, they are in mid-November on average. Anyone who takes themselves remotely seriously as a skier is out skiing then, and they draw big crowds.

If you want to be the dominant resort in the east, like Killington used to be, you need to open before everyone else, so you're the only game in town, and everyone knows it. Even if it's just one or two trails. You get the diehards showing up from all over the east, buying day tickets, and you get loyalty from your passholders. Same thing applies to spring skiing.

I guess I take myself remotely as a serious skier and have no desire to ski the WROD at Killington just because it opens a week or two ahead of my home mountain.

 

[Vortex]

Hey highway star is on to something here. Early and Late season are the key to many pass holders. That is why they buy them. Some die hards come early and late if their mountain is either yet to open, or closed already. I can understand why it may not be worth it to all.

It is also worth it to some.

 

[drjeff]

Hey highway star is on to something here. Early and Late season are the key to many pass holders. That is why they buy them. Some die hards come early and late if their mountain is either yet to open, or closed already. I can understand why it may not be worth it to all.

It is also worth it to some.

I think that early and late are the key to SOME passholders, and likely not enought to really justify it economically. I'd bet that the majority of passholders are the 2 weekend a month from Thanskgiving to mid/late March types. Your diehards who will hit the hill early and late (and mid week for that matter) two is a much smaller base of customers, and that base of customers also tends to use less of the ancillary facilities (rentals, lessons, mountain owned ski shop, food and beverage, etc) than, the less frequent pass holder.

Hands down I will bet that one of the key factors that has led to the ski area management aware of the day to day costs verses the former model of a more big picture entire season cost is how we commonly track data today via the computer and a multitude of spread sheets for cost analysis. Makes it much easier for a GM to look and see that say pre November 20th (pick any weekend date prior to Thanksgiving you want) that your day to day collections will be less (and often significantly less) than your day to day expenses to bring in extra staff to run the area. Same thing say post April 1st (once again pick whatever date you want around then). Pre- easily available accounting software, even 20 years ago, GM's didn't/couldn't as easily get that day to day feed back(sure they had a rough number in their head, but rough vs. exact can often be very sobering data).

 

[deadheadskier]

I wonder what the difference is today to produce an acre of snow versus 15 years ago. Energy costs have certainly gone up, but technology is much more efficient as well.

 

[Vortex]

We are the people in the bars and rests. You are right we don't rent equiptment, I agree it may not be a money maker. It is a marketing cost. I see the value in it.

What is the deciding factor?

Do you want the option for more days, Some may chose that,. some may chose price only, some may chose location. I think length of season is very important to many. I think that is why Boyne is off to a good start. The battle of public opinion in in their favor. K is making headway moving towards the past.

 

[millerm277]

Out of curiosity, I'm wondering why they went with Techno Alpin over SMI, as I only know of them at a handful of areas in the east, as compared to the large numbers of areas with SMI products.

 

[drjeff]

Out of curiosity, I'm wondering why they went with Techno Alpin over SMI, as I only know of them at a handful of areas in the east, as compared to the large numbers of areas with SMI products.

Not sure if it has any thing to do with it, but Techno Alpin's US headquarters is out in the Salt Lake City area, not too far from Powdr's "flagship", Park City Mountain Resort.

 

[deadheadskier]

We are the people in the bars and rests. You are right we don't rent equiptment, I agree it may not be a money maker. It is a marketing cost. I see the value in it.

What is the deciding factor?

Do you want the option for more days, Some may chose that,. some may chose price only, some may chose location. I think length of season is very important to many. I think that is why Boyne is off to a good start. The battle of public opinion in in their favor. K is making headway moving towards the past.

Makes sense

I guess I just have a hard time playing arm chair quarter back without looking at the weekly P&L. I was privy to looking at that for Snowshoe and Wisp. It wasn't a pretty thing to look at except for about 16 weeks a year and Snowshoe has a BOOMING summertime business in comparison to anything I've seen in New England. Every week outside of those 16 the objective of the meeting was cost savings. As the GM at Wisp would say, if we do everything right we get to keep 10 cents out of every dollar we bring in, however when we save a dollar, we get to keep the whole dollar.

It's a balance and one that I am happy that I don't have to be a part of figuring out any more. Couldn't pay me to be a manager at a ski area again.

 

[drjeff]

We are the people in the bars and rests. You are right we don't rent equiptment, I agree it may not be a money maker. It is a marketing cost. I see the value in it.

What is the deciding factor?

Do you want the option for more days, Some may chose that,. some may chose price only, some may chose location. I think length of season is very important to many. I think that is why Boyne is off to a good start. The battle of public opinion in in their favor. K is making headway moving towards the past.

This business side of stuff is the part which REALLY tears at me, especially since I became an owner of my business a few years ago.

On one side of things, the ski addict in me that grew up enjoying the early/late season skiing of the 80's/early 90's really wants the "old way" of things. On the other side of me, the side that signs the checks for operational expenses to run a business is very aware that to stay in business and have the business grow that you need to turn a profit and that there is a fine line between a "good operational loss for marketing" vs. just an operational loss.

With respect to K, even though they haven't had an early/mid October opening in years, their past accomplishments on this front, combined with a modern day opening that is one of, if not the first in the East still accomplishes their current desired goal, same thing late season wise. While it might not be June anymore, they seem to have the desire to be one of, if not the last to close, once again which more cost effectively accomplishes their goal again.

Once again, I'm not saying that I necessarily like their strategy as a hardcore, long season, live in the past skier, but the businessman side of me fully understands why they're making the descisions they are.

 

[mondeo]

This business side of stuff is the part which REALLY tears at me, especially since I became an owner of my business a few years ago.

On one side of things, the ski addict in me that grew up enjoying the early/late season skiing of the 80's/early 90's really wants the "old way" of things. On the other side of me, the side that signs the checks for operational expenses to run a business is very aware that to stay in business and have the business grow that you need to turn a profit and that there is a fine line between a "good operational loss for marketing" vs. just an operational loss.

With respect to K, even though they haven't had an early/mid October opening in years, their past accomplishments on this front, combined with a modern day opening that is one of, if not the first in the East still accomplishes their current desired goal, same thing late season wise. While it might not be June anymore, they seem to have the desire to be one of, if not the last to close, once again which more cost effectively accomplishes their goal again.

Once again, I'm not saying that I necessarily like their strategy as a hardcore, long season, live in the past skier, but the businessman side of me fully understands why they're making the descisions they are.

+1. They had the longest season in the East last year, though that's partly due to Boyne splitting the early open/late close duties between SR and Sugarloaf. All they really need to do to attract the skiers looking for a long season is open a week or two before the next guy and close a week or two after the next. That's where the marketing bang for buck is, and why closing May 2nd last year probably made sense given the payroll schedule they had (hopefully it's been changed, if not that doesn't make sense.) They're able to claim a May closing. That's the big thing.