Firstly Kune is pumping as a ski town and living there is an awesome time but it can seem dead if you're from out of town. Ruapehu is a completely different mt to the southern lakes fields both in terms of environment and target customer. The Ruapehu Region doesn't have the same options for activities as the QT/wanaka, due to both being a national park and there simply being less natural along with financial resources to invest in adventure tourism (that being said the world's first commercial bungee was on the viaduct on the OCR). So when it comes to those closed periods all you can do is go for a walk or try to find something to entertain yourself. theres only about 800 permanent residents compared with 8/20,000 down south, so in winter on some weekends the amount of people in town can be 10x that. which makes it awesome for business in winter but most simply shut around the last week of the season.
RAL's biggest customer also isn't a chinese family paying thousands for a couple days of skiing, food, rentals etc. it's the first time family who's doing it on a bit more of a budget, driven up/down and gonna also pay for the sledding area. almost all the winter residents work up the hill so you don't see them in town. and Finally people don't travel from overseas to ski or train at turoa like they do down south so there will never be as big of ski culture.
there is an awesome vibe within the town and it might not be Wanaka but at least its not that shithole queenstown
