Thoughts about the future of our industy

K

kbrando

Active member
I would like to share my opinions/ideas on the future of the ski and snowboard industry as well as get some feedback from fellow members. I have been on this site for a while and been skiing for a couple decades now and have noticed many changes. When I first started out, skiing was something I did with my whole family at a local hill. We paid barely anything for lift tickets and parked for free. Today it seems like most places charge at least $75 for a lift ticket and you are lucky if you can park for free (this is out west, luckily most eastern and Midwest hills have free parking) Skiing has turning into one of those sports that is pricing out a majority of the population. I totally understand the cost involved with running a mountain and providing excellent service to your guests, it just seems ridiculous to charge $150 a day to go sliding down a hill on some pieces of wood. Another challenge the industry faces going forward is global climate change and the ability to make snow or have it snow naturally

For all these reasons and many more, I feel like it would be great to have skiing and snowboarding be more of a sport like skateboarding. I would love to see towns and cities all over build small jib hills out of artificial snow materials such as snowflex and make them free to the public much like skateparks. It could be a place for people to further their skills or maybe even introduce the sport to people who never would have been introduced before because of price or geography. We could have these all over in place, including cities where it will never snow. Many cities spend hundreds of thousands of dollars if not millions of dollars on their parks system including the construction of skateparks, why not make jib hills? Obviously this will never replace skiing on real snow, but it could be a way to get people excited to spend the money and go on a trip to a resort in the winter. I would love to hear other peoples thoughts or opinions on this!
 
Coming from the uk skiing has never been looked upon as a cheap sport really. For most uk families skiing means a week or so abroad either in Europe or maybe North America. New places in Europe like Bulgaria have helped with cheaper options to the tradionaly French resorts but it's still not cheap.

But it there is a side effect wit this. We have the dry slopes and now domes you speak of. They are not free but Halifax where I used to ride cost the equivalent of about $10 for an evening. They are great and often around cities so they do draw a lot of people who would never get the chance to go abroad.
 
make it happen dude. anyone can do that shit with the internet now. I've got my own plans, cant devote a lot of time to them now cause of school, but I'll put it this way. Think of how cheap and simple skis once were. The industry doesn't think they are viable anymore but if you compare snowskates to snowboarding they look like shit too, yet people make it work.
 
yah dude, i live in Whistler it's absurd the amount of money being charged to just go skiing and with most of the time awful conditions as well.... they need to make it more affordable for people to take their families skiing or people will just simply stop going.
 
Stoked to hear that other people have some similar thoughts. I would love to see these places much like a ruby hill in Denver. Have them small enough that there is no need for a lift, therefore having the ability to make it totally free. It could even be partially funded by mountains, its like free advertising for them all while helping to grow the sport.
 
This is exactly why we need to save our small ski areas.

Places like the hill I grew up at still cost little to nothing to ski and ride at.
 
As far as the beginning it all depends. My first times skiing and snowboarding were at sledding hills.

I agree that $150 bucks is expensive, and in parts of the west there aren't many options, at the same time the Epic pass isn't a bad deal at all.

The east coast has an advantage in there being so many hills, many people have fairly easy access, or at least reasonable access to skiing.

If people end up liking skiing though, and it becomes a big deal to them, it's sustainable. People can work at ski areas, or work buy season passes and work the night game like restaurants to keep the shred alive.

I've worked every North American winter since I turned 14. It's something that was definitely easier being from the east coast, but it can still be done to an extent.

I agree about wishing skiing was more accessible like skating. It's similar to surfing though. It isn't very accessible to people far inland unless they move. You can build a small skatepark for not that much money. Widespread artificial snow parks is probably unrealistic at least at the moment but I wouldn't complain.

That said I would like to see more free ski hills going around the country. Especially with park features and near urban areas like Ruby Hill in Denver etc.

Planet snow tools has started trying to build some community parks as well.

Always been a goal of mine to link up with the right people and be able to get a thing going where funds are raised, we build rails for free, and a small community park is established for that area as part of the towns park system.

At some places the $$$ could be used to purchase a rope tow, maybe build a small lodge for people to get warm and buy grab some hot chocolate.

I'm sure there would be towns interested in doing something like that as well, and some would probably be down to put up some money for it, even al the money for it.

Getting a park near everyone is probably not going to happen. But it would be very cool to expand our parks outside of simply the traditional mountains, and make them more available for people around the country.

If anyone ever reads anything like this that I post and has any skills in the area or working fundraising or working with cities on projects, etc, and wants to make something happen. Let me know.

Even without the fundraising aspect or anything really happening, I would be down to build so features to donate to places. Just wouldn't really know where to start in the logistics.

I tried for years to get a skatepark built in my town. Did all kinds of research, put down ideas for fundraising, scouted locations, found people willing to donate time and money to building it, and still never had any luck. I was just a kid I guess.

But I would love to see more people getting into freestyle skiing/boarding. Especially since it is a sport that isn't that accessible for many people.

/rambling

shred on
 
My issue with skiing today is the content, that is being pushed out. Look at content from skateboarding or bmx. There are a ton of original edits, from going pro parts to new signiture pro model edits. Take for example the Push Series on the Berrics. Follow 8 skaters around for a limited time as they try and film there original segments.http://theberrics.com/push/

I dont see why we cant do that. Follow 6 or 8 guys around for the season as they try and film there breakout parts or even just get a more in depth look at what goes on in making an edit or just getting a trick.

Would also love to see more stuff like Epicly Later'd or Hi Shredibility
http://www.vice.com/series/epicly-later-d
http://www.vice.com/series/hi-shredability

Vice did something with Pep Fujas call Lifted and it was really good. But why not make more. There are so many good riders out there that have some pretty rad stories.

Newschool/Freestyle skiing is still somewhat young 20 years give or take a few. So in the near future im sure, or really hoping, that the skiers who are on the top now will eventually starts companies similar to what Line, 4Frnt, Jskis are. Rider owned rider operated. Once again look at skateboarding or bmx, the core brands are the ones that are well respected. For skating you have Girl, Chocolate, Plan B, Almost. For biking you have Merrit, Kink, Animal.

Would really love to see guys like TJ Schiller start a brand with his Canadian buddies, or even the 4bi9 guys get together and start a ski manufacturer. Imagine 4bi9 making skis. Or in another 10,15,20 years Cam Riley, Sean Jordan, and Clayton Vila starts a ski company that is solely based towards making skis for urban and in the streets. And everyone on the team is has hard core as it gets.
 
topic:kbrando said:
Today it seems like most places charge at least $75 for a lift ticket and you are lucky if you can park for free (this is out west, luckily most eastern and Midwest hills have free parking) Skiing has turning into one of those sports that is pricing out a majority of the population. I totally understand the cost involved with running a mountain and providing excellent service to your guests, it just seems ridiculous to charge $150 a day to go sliding down a hill on some pieces of wood. Another challenge the industry faces going forward is global climate change and the ability to make snow or have it snow naturally
Click to expand...

This is a constant struggle for us. We offer a pass to our college students, faculty, staff, alumni, and their families starting at $165. Its essentially a season pass for 5 mountains and the mountains we work with are, for the most part, reasonable. Except for one.

We also have a pass that students from other college can sign up for but it excludes one of our best mountains. The reason? The hill doesn't want us to 'steal' their competition. So they refuse to work with us to get on that pass and continue to charge these kids like $800 for a season pass at a 700 foot hill. It's ridiculously expensive.

Before my time in the company, the past board members presented this mountain with some kind of analysis that proved they would bring in more skiers and money through us. We were still rejected because we "wouldn't bring in the right demographic." Even though they would be making significantly more money in the long run...they're just worried about getting that $800 per person right now.

So in closing, big corporations suck, they make life difficult, and they don't give a shit about you.
 
Does anyone else think that the ski market is highly over saturated? I feel like there will be multitudes of companies going out of business in the next few years.
 
I think it is utter bullshit that small hills in the Midwest charge $70 for a day pass. The high prices just make me less willing to pay them. Shit, $7 for a cheeseburger from sysco? I'll sneak some carry-ins for lunch and the hill won't make a dollar off of me. If they get better prices, the locals will actually be willing to pay them. I guess they make some good money off of the dummies from chicago.
 
I love the idea of throwing some snowflex on a hill and letting the public have at it. I doubt 'normal skiing' would take off but you'd have a lot of interest in terrain parks and sledding.
 
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