Is the ski resort model dead?

Tony Crocker":3fmkofwv said:
jamesdeluxe":3fmkofwv said:
Here's Soul Skier's big chance to create an MRA-style ski area with its own weather station (run as a for-profit venture by JSpin). 8-[

300 inches of annual snow, close to a small university town and within daytrip distance from a large city (Montreal). Not the hardcore terrain paradise that he's always talking about, but could be a good test run to work out the bugs in his model.
All true, but remember soulskier turns his nose up at eastern skiing. :stir:

First off, Bolton is no MRG terrain, atmosphere, vert and challenge wise. I wouldn't have bought a share if the skier Coop would have started at Bolton, but I did at MRG (and I had skied the place only a couple of times, but immediate feel in love with the place).

rfarren":3fmkofwv said:
soulskier":3fmkofwv said:
You know, we have begun conceptualizing about creating a MRA freestyle/jib ski-energy center in an urban setting with a large population base.

Take a city with a lot of snow and a bunch of kids with nothing else to do, combine it with our hippy ideological theories, and make the planet a better place!

SLC...??? What other city in North America fits that idea?

Hippy ideological theories and SLC??? There are a few cities that I can think of.
 
rfarren":215jjp29 said:
soulskier":215jjp29 said:
You know, we have begun conceptualizing about creating a MRA freestyle/jib ski-energy center in an urban setting with a large population base.

Take a city with a lot of snow and a bunch of kids with nothing else to do, combine it with our hippy ideological theories, and make the planet a better place!

SLC...??? What other city in North America fits that idea?

Top 5 Snowiest US Metropolitan Areas over 1 Million

1. 100.3 Rochester, NY 1,039,000
2. 97.0 Buffalo, NY 1,147,000
3. 61.0 Denver, CO 2,316,000
4. 60.0 Cleveland, OH 2,126,000
5. 50.0 Hartford, CT 1,188,000


Top 10 Snowiest Cities over 100,000 in the US and Canada

1. 130.0 Quebec City 169,000
2. 113.4 Sherbrooke 141,000
3. 111.9 Syracuse, NY 147,000
4. 110.0 Ville du Saguenay 146,000
5. 108.0 Sudbury 155,000
6. 107.0 Halifax 119,000
7. 100.3 Rochester, NY 219,000
8. 97.0 Buffalo, NY 292,000
9. 95.7 Montreal 1,039,000
10. 90.0 Erie, PA 102,000
 
soulskier":2mohatpz said:
Top 5 Snowiest US Metropolitan Areas over 1 Million

1. 100.3 Rochester, NY 1,039,000
2. 97.0 Buffalo, NY 1,147,000
3. 61.0 Denver, CO 2,316,000
4. 60.0 Cleveland, OH 2,126,000
5. 50.0 Hartford, CT 1,188,000


Top 10 Snowiest Cities over 100,000 in the US and Canada

1. 130.0 Quebec City 169,000
2. 113.4 Sherbrooke 141,000
3. 111.9 Syracuse, NY 147,000
4. 110.0 Ville du Saguenay 146,000
5. 108.0 Sudbury 155,000
6. 107.0 Halifax 119,000
7. 100.3 Rochester, NY 219,000
8. 97.0 Buffalo, NY 292,000
9. 95.7 Montreal 1,039,000
10. 90.0 Erie, PA 102,000
Maybe I'm missing something, but aside from Quebec, Denver, and Montreal, the remainder of those cities are in flat places without any sort of mountains I can think of. Am I misunderstanding something?
 
rfarren":1ofbtgyc said:
Maybe I'm missing something, but aside from Quebec, Denver, and Montreal, the remainder of those cities are in flat places without any sort of mountains I can think of. Am I misunderstanding something?
Saguenay and Sherbrooke aren't flat either.

I found this list: Snowiest metro areas in Canada

Saguenay 342cm
St. John's 322
Quebec City 316
Sherbrooke 294
Sudbury 274
Trois-Rivieres 241
Ottawa – Gatineau 236
Halifax 231
Montreal 218
London 202

Snowiest places in Canada: Stewart has great mountain around.

Mt Fidelity, Glacier National Park, BC 1471
Tahtsa Lake West, BC 978
Rogers Pass, Glacier National Park, BC 933
Grouse Mountain, North Vancouver, BC 827
Pleasant Camp, BC 740
Stewart, BC 572
Nain, Newfoundland & Labrador 492
Wapta Lake, Yoho National Park, BC 479
Cap Seize, Quebec 475
Churchill Falls, Newfoundland & Labrador 465
Goose, Newfoundland & Labrador 459
Revelstoke, BC 425
Corner Brook, Newfoundland & Labrador 422
St Cassien Des Caps, Quebec 416
Sept-Iles, Quebec 412
Whistler, BC 411
 
Patrick":2ry5pon7 said:
rfarren":2ry5pon7 said:
soulskier":2ry5pon7 said:
You know, we have begun conceptualizing about creating a MRA freestyle/jib ski-energy center in an urban setting with a large population base.

Take a city with a lot of snow and a bunch of kids with nothing else to do, combine it with our hippy ideological theories, and make the planet a better place!

SLC...??? What other city in North America fits that idea?

Hippy ideological theories and SLC??? There are a few cities that I can think of.
Which shows you don't know SLC at all.
 
rfarren":izwfhayt said:
Maybe I'm missing something, but aside from Quebec, Denver, and Montreal, the remainder of those cities are in flat places without any sort of mountains I can think of. Am I misunderstanding something?

A freestyle center really doesn't need much elevation gain these days.
 
soulskier":h30q7nxw said:
rfarren":h30q7nxw said:
Maybe I'm missing something, but aside from Quebec, Denver, and Montreal, the remainder of those cities are in flat places without any sort of mountains I can think of. Am I misunderstanding something?

A freestyle center really doesn't need much elevation gain these days.

Oh I see, so it's no so much about big terrain anymore as much as big air. One question though, and I don't mean this to be antagonistic, but isn't a half pipe really expensive to make and maintain. I though half-pipes and jumps t required a lot of snow blowing and a couple of snowcats to work a couple of weeks. If you have something else planned let me know, but I'm not sure how this fits within your original mission statement.
 
Tony Crocker":14xmybsn said:
All true, but remember soulskier turns his nose up at eastern skiing. :stir:
This MRA discussion has become a purely intellectual exercise. I wasn't seriously implying that Soul Skier should consider Bolton. His cultural and skiing roots are in the west, and he has no intention of relocating to the northeast (just like I have no intention of moving back to the Rockies), so I understand where he's coming from.

The fact that the well-traveled JSpin calls Bolton his home hill -- and has posted hundreds of photos with :drool:-worthy conditions to back up his words -- is evidence enough for me that it would be an interesting test ground for some sort of back-to-the-roots ski-area model. It just wouldn't necessarily be Soul Skier's model because it doesn't have the gnar/vertical factor or western location.
 
rfarren":f9lxqahk said:
soulskier":f9lxqahk said:
rfarren":f9lxqahk said:
Maybe I'm missing something, but aside from Quebec, Denver, and Montreal, the remainder of those cities are in flat places without any sort of mountains I can think of. Am I misunderstanding something?

A freestyle center really doesn't need much elevation gain these days.

Oh I see, so it's no so much about big terrain anymore as much as big air. One question though, and I don't mean this to be antagonistic, but isn't a half pipe really expensive to make and maintain. I though half-pipes and jumps t required a lot of snow blowing and a couple of snowcats to work a couple of weeks. If you have something else planned let me know, but I'm not sure how this fits within your original mission statement.

As mentioned earlier, we are conceptualizing a MRA Freestyle area. This would be totally different experience than lift served big mountain skiing, but with the same core hippy values, incorporating clean energy and social responsibility into the business model.

So yes, it's about big terrain still, this is another type of project all together.
 
soulskier":1dcwzxdq said:
As mentioned earlier, we are conceptualizing a MRA Freestyle area. This would be totally different experience than lift served big mountain skiing, but with the same core hippy values, incorporating clean energy and social responsibility into the business model.

So yes, it's about big terrain still, this is another type of project all together.
Diversifying away from your core business model/idea before you're even in business - always a solid plan. :roll:
 
Mike Bernstein":diddtvze said:
soulskier":diddtvze said:
As mentioned earlier, we are conceptualizing a MRA Freestyle area. This would be totally different experience than lift served big mountain skiing, but with the same core hippy values, incorporating clean energy and social responsibility into the business model.

So yes, it's about big terrain still, this is another type of project all together.
Diversifying away from your core business model/idea before you're even in business - always a solid plan. :roll:

You guys crack me up!
 
we are conceptualizing a MRA Freestyle area
This is hardly a new concept either. We've had freestyle park intensive areas in SoCal for quite awhile now. They are quite successful in attracting the younger generation and even competing with the more distant (thus more expensive) "real mountain with real snow" at Mammoth. Parks are a big shot in the arm to snow and vertical challenged areas in the Midwest and near urban centers. But to build a world class park you need big time snowmaking. So perhaps there's more of an incentive to produce one's own energy here than in the original MRA concept since you'll be using a lot of it. You'll still need some government incentives to make it work though.
 
Tony Crocker":1quhvp4z said:
we are conceptualizing a MRA Freestyle area
This is hardly a new concept either. We've had freestyle park intensive areas in SoCal for quite awhile now. They are quite successful in attracting the younger generation and even competing with the more distant (thus more expensive) "real mountain with real snow" at Mammoth. Parks are a big shot in the arm to snow and vertical challenged areas in the Midwest and near urban centers. But to build a world class park you need big time snowmaking. So perhaps there's more of an incentive to produce one's own energy here than in the original MRA concept since you'll be using a lot of it. You'll still need some government incentives to make it work though.

Any idea if it has been done in an actual urban setting, in the center of a populated city for example?
 
Admin":2fndrbu6 said:

Thanks for that Admin!
 
soulskier":3sbt4c7d said:
Any idea if it has been done in an actual urban setting, in the center of a populated city for example?
Calgary Olympic Park is a good example, but we know how that got financed.
 
Mike Bernstein":17aaer3y said:
soulskier":17aaer3y said:
As mentioned earlier, we are conceptualizing a MRA Freestyle area. This would be totally different experience than lift served big mountain skiing, but with the same core hippy values, incorporating clean energy and social responsibility into the business model.

So yes, it's about big terrain still, this is another type of project all together.
Diversifying away from your core business model/idea before you're even in business - always a solid plan. :roll:

The beauty is, it's applying the same core values, Community, Environment and Riders to the operating and business model.

It can be a lower angle family hill, a jib center or a big mountain arena, and still fit within our mantra, "Creating Sustainable Mountain Playgrounds".
 
soulskier":38524834 said:
Mike Bernstein":38524834 said:
soulskier":38524834 said:
As mentioned earlier, we are conceptualizing a MRA Freestyle area. This would be totally different experience than lift served big mountain skiing, but with the same core hippy values, incorporating clean energy and social responsibility into the business model.

So yes, it's about big terrain still, this is another type of project all together.
Diversifying away from your core business model/idea before you're even in business - always a solid plan. :roll:

The beauty is, it's applying the same core values, Community, Environment and Riders to the operating and business model.

It can be a lower angle family hill, a jib center or a big mountain arena, and still fit within our mantra, "Creating Sustainable Mountain Playgrounds".

I'm going to try this one last time, b/c apparently the message isn't sinking in. Let me try using a personal anecdote from my previous career. I used to work for a massive beverage and snacks company. They had a long and well-earned reputation for hitting their revenue/volume targets quarter after quarter, year after year in their core soda and bottled water business. As you may be aware, over the last 10-15 years the beverage market has seen significant growth in "alternative" beverages, be it energy drinks, teas, coffees, juices, enhanced waters - whatever. Whereas it used to be soda and water, now there's a million different brands and categories competing for attention.

When it became obvious that this trend was not just a fad but was in fact a paradigm shift, that company quickly and eagerly jumped on board, creating new brands of its own and buying or licensing other successful brands. The logic was flawless - we already sent delivery trucks and sales people to every single convenience store, gas station, supermarket, and restaurant every day of the week. It would be an absolute no-brainer to simply place these new brands on those same trucks, and have our existing salespeople leverage their relationships to drive additional volume in their accounts. Same trucks, same people, same company, same customers and, in some cases, same consumers. A total lay-up, right?

Wrong. For the first time anyone could remember, our bottlers started missing their sales targets for these beverages. Despite millions of dollars of ad spending behind us and an army of tens of thousands of salespeople and deliverymen, the brands we had in our portfolio were actually losing share to smaller competitors. As it turns out, what looked like such a lay-up was a very different sale than our traditional soda business. Smaller volumes, less/different shelf space, different margins in the channel, different consumption patterns, and sometimes different consumers. What seemed to even industry experts/veterans as being identical businesses were in fact very different.

Why am I telling you this story? Because it's clear you are underestimating just how different the two business models you are proposing are from one another. Having the same core values re: community, environment and riders is essentially irrelevant in the larger scheme of how you are going to profitably operate those two ski areas on a day to day basis. You will be marketing to an almost completely different skier/rider, dealing with a completely different set of mtn ops challenges (avi control/snow safety vs. snowmaking/park maintenance), a vastly higher liability exposure, a radically different expense budget composition and, of course, an entirely different set of regulatory obstacles (by definition, the urban jib park is likely to be on private land and subject to some form of zoning/oversight vs. the freeride area which will be on NFS/Crown land). It is disturbing to me that you not only fail to see this, but in fact refuse to acknowledge these (and other) substantial differences even when they are pointed out to you. And this is before we even discuss the absurdity of trying to create a "green" urban jib park that is reliant largely on man-made snow and night skiing, both of which consume huge amounts of energy.

Jamie - the larger point here is that, even if the urban jib park were a good idea with lots of synergies/similarities with your freeride area, you would be wise to crawl before you try to walk, and walk before you try to run. As stated in the other thread, there's only so much time in the day. How much of your work day are you willing to ignore the mgmt needs of your freeride area (there will be many) in favor or focusing on the completely different needs and priorities of your urban jib area? Two hours? Three? Is that fair to the employees and/or investors of either area that they aren't getting your full attention? Even if you plan to hire someone to look after the jib area so you don't have to, do you think that's the best use of scarce start-up capital when that same money could be used to hire a kick-ass mtn ops manager or snow safety director (I hear there's a really good one looking for work in Alberta) for the freeride area?

You need to think long and hard about this b/c all of your public utterances leave the impression that you're caught up in the coolness of spreading your "core values" w/o realizing that if you don't focus on your core business, you'll have no platform from which to spread your "core values". In other words, no one gives a shit how green, or core, or community-friendly you are when you are out of business. You'll just be another clueless dreamer with internet access spewing banal platitudes about the evils of the ski industry.
 
Mike Bernstein":33w862t8 said:
I'm going to try this one last time, b/c apparently the message isn't sinking in. Let me try using a personal anecdote from my previous career. I used to work for a massive beverage and snacks company. They had a long and well-earned reputation for hitting their revenue/volume targets quarter after quarter, year after year in their core soda and bottled water business. As you may be aware, over the last 10-15 years the beverage market has seen significant growth in "alternative" beverages, be it energy drinks, teas, coffees, juices, enhanced waters - whatever. Whereas it used to be soda and water, now there's a million different brands and categories competing for attention.

When it became obvious that this trend was not just a fad but was in fact a paradigm shift, that company quickly and eagerly jumped on board, creating new brands of its own and buying or licensing other successful brands. The logic was flawless - we already sent delivery trucks and sales people to every single convenience store, gas station, supermarket, and restaurant every day of the week. It would be an absolute no-brainer to simply place these new brands on those same trucks, and have our existing salespeople leverage their relationships to drive additional volume in their accounts. Same trucks, same people, same company, same customers and, in some cases, same consumers. A total lay-up, right?

Wrong. For the first time anyone could remember, our bottlers started missing their sales targets for these beverages. Despite millions of dollars of ad spending behind us and an army of tens of thousands of salespeople and deliverymen, the brands we had in our portfolio were actually losing share to smaller competitors. As it turns out, what looked like such a lay-up was a very different sale than our traditional soda business. Smaller volumes, less/different shelf space, different margins in the channel, different consumption patterns, and sometimes different consumers. What seemed to even industry experts/veterans as being identical businesses were in fact very different.

Why am I telling you this story? Because it's clear you are underestimating just how different the two business models you are proposing are from one another. Having the same core values re: community, environment and riders is essentially irrelevant in the larger scheme of how you are going to profitably operate those two ski areas on a day to day basis. You will be marketing to an almost completely different skier/rider, dealing with a completely different set of mtn ops challenges (avi control/snow safety vs. snowmaking/park maintenance), a vastly higher liability exposure, a radically different expense budget composition and, of course, an entirely different set of regulatory obstacles (by definition, the urban jib park is likely to be on private land and subject to some form of zoning/oversight vs. the freeride area which will be on NFS/Crown land). It is disturbing to me that you not only fail to see this, but in fact refuse to acknowledge these (and other) substantial differences even when they are pointed out to you. And this is before we even discuss the absurdity of trying to create a "green" urban jib park that is reliant largely on man-made snow and night skiing, both of which consume huge amounts of energy.

Jamie - the larger point here is that, even if the urban jib park were a good idea with lots of synergies/similarities with your freeride area, you would be wise to crawl before you try to walk, and walk before you try to run. As stated in the other thread, there's only so much time in the day. How much of your work day are you willing to ignore the mgmt needs of your freeride area (there will be many) in favor or focusing on the completely different needs and priorities of your urban jib area? Two hours? Three? Is that fair to the employees and/or investors of either area that they aren't getting your full attention? Even if you plan to hire someone to look after the jib area so you don't have to, do you think that's the best use of scarce start-up capital when that same money could be used to hire a kick-ass mtn ops manager or snow safety director (I hear there's a really good one looking for work in Alberta) for the freeride area?

You need to think long and hard about this b/c all of your public utterances leave the impression that you're caught up in the coolness of spreading your "core values" w/o realizing that if you don't focus on your core business, you'll have no platform from which to spread your "core values". In other words, no one gives a [censored] how green, or core, or community-friendly you are when you are out of business. You'll just be another clueless dreamer with internet access spewing banal platitudes about the evils of the ski industry.


MRA currently has over 70 people actively working together to forward the organization. We are having a think tank scheduled for next month that includes some industry veterans. We have several graduate students that are doing their thesis on different components of the MRA business plan. Some of them will even be aiding in the grant writing. I feel confident we can multi-task on various projects and share best practices under the same parent company.

BTW, I am the only one of the group that posts here, nice to know ya.
 
soulskier":25wj3ags said:
MRA currently has over 70 people actively working together to forward the organization. We are having a think tank scheduled for next month that includes some industry veterans. We have several graduate students that are doing their thesis on different components of the MRA business plan. Some of them will even be aiding in the grant writing. I feel confident we can multi-task on various projects and share best practices under the same parent company.

How many of those 70 people are working on the MRA full-time? How many have practical experience with any of the issues you are facing? To what exent are their efforts being directed or managed on a consistent basis so that you can ensure that the agenda is being pushed forward correctly and at the necessary speed?

It's great that you are having a brain storming session with industry veterans - what about the follow up? Do you have an organization in place that is capable of executing on the good ideas they come up with?

As for the graduate students, that seems like a better deal for them than for you. There are lots of businesses where students form an important component of the workforce. They are called fast food restaurants.

I wish you the best of luck here. You're going to need it.
 
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