Permanent Industry Changes in the Post-COVID World

[jimk]

TB, would you say Deer Valley is becoming the go-to mtn for relief on crazy days in LCC and BCC?

 

[thetrailboss]

TB, would you say Deer Valley is becoming the go-to mtn for relief on crazy days in LCC and BCC?

Yep. As I said recently, one passholder there told me that it used to be that people at DV were always from out of town. Now it is the opposite.

 

[keyser soze]

Count me out on both of those.

If anything, the lodges need more cubbies/lockers/storage space. Some mountains have a ton, but too many have none. They should enforce no bags on/under tables. There are some days when booting up in the lodge is infinitely better than at the car.

Also my wife is a non skier and occasionally tags along on my ski trips and reads in the lodge. If any ski area ever has time limits for reasons outside of covid I will never give them my business again. I agree it's obnoxious when one person hogs an entire table and that should be dealt with, but there should absolutely never be a "reservation system" for the main seating area of a lodge after the pandemic is over.

I'm sure you could "handle all that" when your family can just go back to your condo if this stuff were to continue permanently. Some of us don't have that luxury.

I agree with you on all points. Great minds think alike

 

[thetrailboss]

And just saw this in regards to how IKON works for partner resorts:

This is from a lawyer in Jackson Hole in the know, on the dollars behind Ikon.
Each resort gets $1,000,000 before the lifts even start spinning.
Once the resort has met the $1,000,000 in skier visits (retail value at the window), then the resort receives $82 per skier per day visit.
That is money to good to pass up.
Then add food and beverage purchases, lodging ( if they stay), lessons, rentals, etc.
You can understand why Ikon and Epic are taking over.

I keep hearing different iterations of this.
Another rumor was that their base million is charged at a rate of $32 per skier per day visit, but once they clear that they get $85 per daily scan after that

 

[NYDB]

Lawyer willing to be disbarred for divulging sensitive client financial information? He must be super pissed about the tram lines.

 

[ss20]

Honestly that sounds really really high to me. $82 for each scan? What if I ski 50 days on ikon? I'm sure there's more people that ski 30 days on the pass than 3...doesn't make any sense to me.

 

[KustyTheKlown]

i think they bank on people underutilizing offsetting the overutilizers. but still, its wild.

 

[cdskier]

Honestly that sounds really really high to me. $82 for each scan? What if I ski 50 days on ikon? I'm sure there's more people that ski 30 days on the pass than 3...doesn't make any sense to me.

I agree that $82 sounds high (if you use it at Pico, in some cases Pico would get MORE than they're selling their own day tickets for as an example) ...but don't forget that's AFTER the resort passes the $1M mark (if the info is correct). That means the first 5,000 to 31,250 Ikon scans at a given resort don't count (depending on whether rumor #1 or rumor #2 is true on how they calculate the base revenue offset). Still, with 29 partner resorts, that means Alterra is paying out $29M right off the bat to partners at a minimum.

You also have some people that have Ikon purely to use it at the Alterra unlimited resorts (essentially what I'm doing at Sugarbush unless I happen to make it to K for a day later this season).

 

[thetrailboss]

Honestly that sounds really really high to me. $82 for each scan? What if I ski 50 days on ikon? I'm sure there's more people that ski 30 days on the pass than 3...doesn't make any sense to me.

Not exactly. Each resort gets $1 mill up front. Then each scan is billed against that until the resort reaches $1 million. Sounds like it's not clear as to if for the first million it is $35 per pass or retail. THEN it becomes $85 per scan.

At what point in the season do you think that each scan becomes $85? The very last part. And guess when people DON'T ski? The end.

 

[jimmywilson69]

$1,000,000 Divided by $32 is only 31,250 visits. Seems low when you consider the places that are on IKon.

 

[abc]

$1,000,000 Divided by $32 is only 31,250 visits. Seems low when you consider the places that are on IKon.

After that it's $82 (or $35?)/scan. Not bad at all (especially if it's the former)

 

[jimmywilson69]

I feel like some of the busier places would roll through that $1 Million pretty fast like in a month. Then if they get $82? No wonder no one can say no...

 

[cdskier]

I feel like some of the busier places would roll through that $1 Million pretty fast like in a month. Then if they get $82? No wonder no one can say no...

From what I found in a quick search, some resorts were saying Ikon usage represented around 10% of their visits. If that number held across the majority of the partner resorts, then some resorts would definitely hit that $1M mark somewhere between 1/3 to 1/2 of the way through the season. But don't forget some of the partners are also out of the US. How many people are using Ikon to ski at Chile? Or Japan? Or Zermatt? Or Australia? So I'm sure those are helping offset a bit too as they probably aren't passing the $1M mark.

 

[snoseek]

Once upon a time you had to enter a lottery just to buy a season pass at Alta. Ikon is killing that canyon and alot of it is the massive population that lives closeby and can cherry pick their days.

 

[raisingarizona]

I looked up U.S. population stats today. When I was born in 1975, 45 years ago there were around 219 million people here. Now there’s around 330 million. That’s over a 33.33% increase in just 45 years. This is not good. I’m a firm believer the more crowded we become the lower the quality of life becomes.

 

[abc]

You're well past your "2 post" limit.

 

[KustyTheKlown]

im doing my part by refusing to procreate and would like if more people made that same choice.

 

[ss20]

I looked up U.S. population stats today. When I was born in 1975, 45 years ago there were around 219 million people here. Now there’s around 330 million. That’s over a 33.33% increase in just 45 years. This is not good. I’m a firm believer the more crowded we become the lower the quality of life becomes.

/off topic

Hang out a few more decades. Population growth is gonna go flat and then negative by the end of this century by a majority of estimates.

You don't want to see decreasing/aging population. That royally fucks up a country's economics. Look at Japan and most of Europe. China too is gonna be in deep deep shit in the coming decades...apparently a "one child policy" in a nation that prefers males is a bad idea for long-term growth.

 

[thetrailboss]

im doing my part by refusing to procreate and would like if more people made that same choice.

Unfortunately our Utah brethren are busy making up for you.

 

[raisingarizona]

Im

/off topic

Hang out a few more decades. Population growth is gonna go flat and then negative by the end of this century by a majority of estimates.

You don't want to see decreasing/aging population. That royally fucks up a country's economics. Look at Japan and most of Europe. China too is gonna be in deep deep shit in the coming decades...apparently a "one child policy" in a nation that prefers males is a bad idea for long-term growth.

Long term growth isn’t going to be sustainable for much longer I’m afraid. Actually I’m not afraid at all, it is what it is but at this rate it’s definitely going to pot imho.