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Sustainability of Night Skiing?

ss20

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Here's something that I've always wondered- how is it profitable for mountains to offer night skiing. In browsing Mohawk's pass offerings for next year I saw that they are switching from a 9:30am-10pm schedule Monday-Saturday to a 9:30am-8pm schedule Monday-Wednesday with the traditional 9:30am-10pm schedule for Thursday-Saturday.

For a small mountain, such as Mohawk, which is more rural than urban, night skiing doesn't make financial sense to me. There's lots of school groups, and occasionally race practice (no real events though) whenever I go, which is always a Friday night or a powder day. I get that there's race leagues and weekly ski school programs, but these don't run til 10pm. After 8pm the mountain is dead. Who wants to ski at 9pm on a Tuesday?!?

Let's go further north...to Jiminy Peak. I've night skied there Fridays and Saturdays. It's still dead after 8pm. And they're running that detachable lift, too. I couldn't imagine what it's like midweek.

Essentially, how is night skiing profitable with the added costs of lights and labor, when there's shockingly few skiers on the hill. Especially given the stereotype that the ski industry makes its money Christmas week, President's week, and MLK weekend. It just boggles my mind how much money must be lost by literally "keeping the lights on" for 2 or 3 hours after the hill is done making money.
 

cdskier

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A couple thoughts...

I think night skiing definitely has a place and brings in revenue in certain markets. Maybe they don't necessarily need to run until 10 and could close at 8 or 9. Back in HS when my town's ski club went to Mountain Creek there was definitely a good crowd at night. I don't remember exactly what time we stayed until, but it was either 8 or 9PM. I'm leaning more towards 9, but I could be wrong. Bristol in western NY is an area that I did some night skiing at back in college. It was either Friday or Saturday nights that we would go and again I remember there being a good crowd (one of those nights was "Wegman's Family Night" where with a Wegman's shopper's club card you could get 4 tickets for really cheap...so I'm sure that brought in crowds as well).

When I was learning how to ski I did a lot of night skiing on weekends in the Poconos. While the mountain itself wasn't that crowded, the bar was packed. My dad would bring me, my brother, and my sister to the mountain and sit in the bar having a few beers while we skied at night. I'm sure the mountain made a decent amount of money from parents like my dad that were in the bar.
 

Hawkshot99

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Night skiing is not profitable soley on walk up tickets.
The profit comes from group sales.
You mention Jiminy. They are a zoo midweek with the school groups. The schools have 8 trips per year each. Every midweek night you will find 10+ sometimes 20 buses in the lot depending on the night. It usually seamed 1/3-1/2 of them also rent their gear. The slopes are not super busy, as they are mostly in the lodge eating chicken fingers and spending more money.
It it amazing how at 8pm the place becomes a ghost town as they all leave and board the busses.
While the mtn lived the ski groups, I hated them as the ski shop manager. The kids very rarely spent any money in the shop, but I had to staff quite heavy for the amount of income as those kids looked for any opportunity to shop lift.

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Smellytele

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School groups and corporate racing keep night skiing going. It is about building the base of skiers going in the future. Also if they closed at 8 who would by a ticket for 2 or 3 hours?
 

dlague

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I also think that places that offer night skiing see it as another marketing tool for selling passes. I know Pats Peak can often be quite busy especially with beer leagues, school programs, tubing and the Sled Pub fills right up. Gunstock does more of a limited operation using the lower half. It is more of a ghost town compared to Pats but it is a lot of fun and they do get a fair share of visitors. The pub often has more people than the slopes though. Viability - I think is is not going away any time soon.

On the Vail pass we have Keystone which has a huge night skiing area at nearly 300 acres. That can get fairly busy. The difference with their operation is that it is not always open - more of a Thurday-Sunday deal and only until 8 pm. During peak season and vacation periods, they will be open mid-week.
 

tumbler

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The few times I have been to Wawa at night it was a zoo with kids.
 

SIKSKIER

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Sunday River and Bretton Woods are probably one of the exceptions but pretty much all night skiing mts have most of their cutomers from clubs.schools,and leagues.Those 2 seem like it is done more to satisfy those resort property people.I believe a lot of the mid size areas would not exist without night skiing so I guess I see it just the opposite..
 

BenedictGomez

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Night skiing is hugely important to the Pocono ski areas.

I'm not aware of any other location where night skiing is as important. At most places it's somewhat gimmicky with only a few trails lit, but in the Pokes 100% of terrain is lighted.
 

Smellytele

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Night skiing is hugely important to the Pocono ski areas.

I'm not aware of any other location where night skiing is as important. At most places it's somewhat gimmicky with only a few trails lit, but in the Pokes 100% of terrain is lighted.
Central/Eastern Mass and southern NH night skiing is an important part of their business as well.
 

Jully

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Night skiing is hugely important to the Pocono ski areas.

I'm not aware of any other location where night skiing is as important. At most places it's somewhat gimmicky with only a few trails lit, but in the Pokes 100% of terrain is lighted.

Important for a lot of smaller areas in MA too. Places closer to Boston, WaWa, Nashoba, Blue Hills, etc, all depend on night skiing (WaWa less, but that is because it is jammed 24/7).

I think it indeed comes from group sales and from pass sales that include night skiing, like others have said.
 

dlague

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Pats Peak is also a ZOO at nights, especially Fridays and Saturdays.

yes it is! I have only been there a few Saturdays for Ride and Ski tour stops, but by the time nightfall happens I am in the bar so i do not mind outside of the fact that the Sled Pub is way to small!
 

jimmywilson69

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I often argue that Roundtop in PA should only be open at nights during the week. I'm sure the handful of retired season pass holders would flip out, but honestly most days the slopes are vacant. In recent years they have started offering gimmicks to get people there during the day. I know Thursday is Home School Day , and it usually looks decently busy.

As BG said Night skiing isn't a gimmick in PA, its a large portion of their revenue especially during the week.
 

drjeff

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Bottom line, night skiing can be a sustainable, profitable source IF the ski area has a sizeable population base within roughly an hour's drive (attracts lucrative school programs in that driving distance)

Having a decent terrain park under the lights helps, and if the population base has the interest, at least a night or 2 a week of an adult race league works as well.

Most major ski areas are just too far from a significant enough population base to support a sustainable night operation, and add in the multiple base areas of many larger resorts and the reality that a minimal overall amount of terrain could be lit, and it just doesn't make economic sense for the larger areas

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Newpylong

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Bottom line, night skiing can be a sustainable, profitable source IF the ski area has a sizeable population base within roughly an hour's drive (attracts lucrative school programs in that driving distance)

Having a decent terrain park under the lights helps, and if the population base has the interest, at least a night or 2 a week of an adult race league works as well.

Most major ski areas are just too far from a significant enough population base to support a sustainable night operation, and add in the multiple base areas of many larger resorts and the reality that a minimal overall amount of terrain could be lit, and it just doesn't make economic sense for the larger areas

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Do you think someone at Mount Snow has done any feasibility studies about lighting up a slope or two at Carinthia? I am sure the locals would flip out about the lights themselves.
 

Not Sure

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As BG said Night skiing isn't a gimmick in PA, its a large portion of their revenue especially during the week.

1+ It's actaully a great value vs weekend zoo . I did most of my skiing at night growing up at "Doe" mt. Now Bear Creek.
They used to shut down the lifts from 4-4:30 around dusk , Not sure if it was intended to heard all the skiers into the lodge to spend money or a saftey thing before the lights became effective .
 

benski

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1+ It's actaully a great value vs weekend zoo . I did most of my skiing at night growing up at "Doe" mt. Now Bear Creek.
They used to shut down the lifts from 4-4:30 around dusk , Not sure if it was intended to heard all the skiers into the lodge to spend money or a saftey thing before the lights became effective .

Defiantly was to get you guys to make money.
 

cdskier

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Most major ski areas are just too far from a significant enough population base to support a sustainable night operation, and add in the multiple base areas of many larger resorts and the reality that a minimal overall amount of terrain could be lit, and it just doesn't make economic sense for the larger areas

Larger areas also need to utilize the entire 4PM-8AM time-frame for grooming operations often times. Having to work around night skiing would complicate that a bit. Then since you would only be able to light some trails at larger areas, you'd also have the added challenge for ski patrol of closing off the unlit trails to keep people off them at night. Completely agree for most larger areas it doesn't make sense. For the smaller mountains near lots of people, it absolutely can make great economic sense though. School programs can be a good money maker.
 

snoseek

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I'm just here to post that midnight madness a Crotched is a complete blast and I hope it continues on for a long time.

Its all about location. If an area is within an hour of an urbanish area with people it makes sense. Locally I've got nothing around after 4 and that's a big drawback for me.
 

drjeff

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Do you think someone at Mount Snow has done any feasibility studies about lighting up a slope or two at Carinthia? I am sure the locals would flip out about the lights themselves.

They literally tried this with the Grommet small park a number of years ago. The response of the public was underwhelming to say the least, and that experiment I don't even think lasted a full season.

I doubt they'd want to light a larger park just based on the number of hours of daily maintenance they need, and how often Mount Snow at least, does significant rebuilds of their parks to keep the features fresh and new
 
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