NASTAR At Whiteface

[Xtremeskiier]

I can't believe they would choose Broadway since its a great intermediate run at the end of the day when upper valley goes to crap. I think that if they were going to have to pay this extra money for liability, they should spendit on a larger skiier cross and leave it up on lower valley. People would definately pay to do that and Whiteface is a racers mountain. The weather conditions make it unusually icy and is known as a steep and fast mountain. Ski areas usually add parks as a way to get younger kids to come and inturn bring out more families. In whiteface's case, there are so few people in the parks that I don't see it bringing in much added value to the mountain... just my thoughts though

[CS_Films]

Freestyle skiing and Snowboarding are becoming a large part of the ski industry. Allot of the most successful mountains in the country have great parks and defiantly draw people and families. This park expansion is a great thing they are doing. I know they had planed on doing some trail work to relieve pressure on tower 10 hill and that was never able to happen this may be a major reason for this. Whiteface is working hard along with every New York State entity in making every dollar they spend count. I am sure alot of things were taken into consideration when they made this move.

[Snowballs]

Freestyle skiing and Snowboarding are becoming a large part of the ski industry. Allot of the most successful mountains in the country have great parks and defiantly draw people and families. This park expansion is a great thing they are doing. I know they had planed on doing some trail work to relieve pressure on tower 10 hill and that was never able to happen this may be a major reason for this. Whiteface is working hard along with every New York State entity in making every dollar they spend count. I am sure alot of things were taken into consideration when they made this move.

Dude...i was just writing about you on the Misc. page here under the Wild Stallions thread. Welcome to the board!!! You and you friends have some great talent in front of and behind the camera. not kidding.

how about that for a coincedence! these young guys are turning out some great film work that not only displays their awesome skiing skills...their cinematography, presentation etc blah blah far surpasses their limited film making career and puts them ahead of others who are on this path who have more money and experience. that rocks! good job!!!

[fujative.]

Here is an idea if they need more space on tower 10 hill lets put Nastar on Broadway instead of a terrian park - it will be less expensive than having to blow extra snow for the features in the park.

Here is a little simple financial anaysis of the terrian park. I've heard that the park budget was north of $500,000 - to cover the extra snow, extra grooming time building the features, staff, liability for injuries, higher insurance etc. Let's say that will the large addition of broadway the park budget is $600k. At $74 a day for lift tickets that means you have to sell over 8100 more lift tickets just to break even on cash flow.

the proper way to do this would be to really look at the extra profit that the park brings in. Since we don't know WF's margin lets just say its 25%. In that case WF would have to sell over 24,000 more lift tickets to justify the terriain park. I don't the park supports any where near that. On a weekend its the same 25-50 kids that use the thing all day long and most of them have a season's pass.

If WF got rid of the park it would not hurt the tourist business in Placid one bit. Park rats are not really the demographic that LP is looking for

Conversely - nastar is cheap to operate - just a few staff on snow that is already blown. Since their is less traffic on Nastar is does not need as much snow as a regular trail. It brings in extra money on top of a lift ticket. Both locals and tourists use and love it. This is a no brainer financial decision - keep Nastar and dump the parks.

HI, I'm a "park rat" here to rain on your parade. You'd be amazed how much money a good park will bring a mountain. And being a freestyle skier, I can tell you Whiteface has the best park in NY. On another Freestyle skiing forum, kids from all over the northeast make threads about where to go in NY for a good park. Kids drag their families from Canada, Downstate, Western NY, and even Pennsylvania for the park.

I think that you're missing that most of these "park rats" are under the age of 18, coming from where ever with their families. Just because the entire family doesn't go through the park, doesn't mean the park isn't part of the reason why they're there. And you say maybe 25 kids hit the park a day, most of them with passes? WRONG. Try waiting to hit that first jump. Each feature will have a line of about 30 people.

[SKIdds]

I am not a park rat, so I'm not in there all the time. But I do pass through that way a couple of times a day when I'm on the hill. Did I mention I ski WF mostly on holiday weekends? I've never seen a line of 30 people waiting for a feature in the park. Not that I'm completely disagreeing with your points about who the park brings in (I really can't say), but me thinks you exaggerate a wee bit to make your point . Or maybe I just go through at the right times to avoid those crowds. Lucky me.

[zski]

Ok let's explore this idea that park actually makes money (though i personally very much doubt this is the case)

since there is (was) a charge to use Nastar it would only seem to make sense to me than to charge for use of the park

Given that only a small percentage of skiers / riders really use it the cost of building the features. It would actually be very helpful in defense of law suits regarding injuries that occur in the park if they would charge a fee to use it and require a waiver signature when you pay for it. Since you would be taking the use of the park away from others that wouldn't pay and it used to be free lets say you give everyone that opts out a $5 discount off current rates. This could help spur lift ticket sales as well for non - park types. Of course since only at best 20% (i'd put it at close to 10%) of people would pay to use the park you would need to charge them at least $20 plus some profit to lets say $25.

OK park rats - would you pay $25 to use the park?

Just like Nastar they would sell a season pass to the park say for $100-150

In business school they teach you that if that is someone is not willing to pay for something its not worth doing. I suspect the park would not make the cut as a stand alone business model as i laid out. In an earlier post I've made my case how the park is not financially sound either so why the heck is WF spending more on parks - THEY LOSE MONEY NO MATTER HOW YOU LOOK AT IT!

[SKIdds]

From a business standpoint you can't always use the 'if it can't float as a standalone you shouldn't do it' argument, as fujative makes a viable point. If there are a dozen people in the park on a given day whose family chose WF as a destination because it had a decent park for their junior shredder, you'd have to assign at least a portion (if not all) of the revenue generated by ticket sales to Jhonny's mom, dad sis and bro, along with the Kid's Kampus lessons sis and bro took, and adult lessons mom took, and the grub they purchasd at lunch, and, and......to the park operations. HOw can you really figure how it does as a standalone? That non-park-user revenue would not have existed but for the park, so how do you count it?

Problem is, we have no idea how much that is really happening. However, I bet more people choose a destination because it has a great park as opposed to a NASTAR course, and NASTAR revenue had to to be negligible.

All in all, I'm ok with the park development. Honestly, even though I'm old and I suck at them, I use the pipe and the park more than the nastar course.

It would be interesting to know more about the true cost of NASTAR. What kind of fees, if any, did the mountain have to pay to support the program and other stuff like that. NASTAR might not have been as profitable as a standalone as everyone seems to be assuming.

[zski]

i hear the the park brings the mom dad and gramps to the mountain agruement but if you read my earlier post on financial analysis of the park does it bring at least 24000 more lift tickets a year to cover its costs - doubt it

to me losing Broadway is as big if not a bigger issue than losing Nastar. That is going to put that much more traffic on upper valley and easy street. Easy street is where the lower level skier are so that is not good and upper valley already gets really icy or sloppy at the end of the day now. How bad is that going to be with 50% more traffic on it all day long

[PeteG]

i hear the the park brings the mom dad and gramps to the mountain agruement but if you read my earlier post on financial analysis of the park does it bring at least 24000 more lift tickets a year to cover its costs - doubt it

to me losing Broadway is as big if not a bigger issue than losing Nastar. That is going to put that much more traffic on upper valley and easy street. Easy street is where the lower level skier are so that is not good and upper valley already gets really icy or sloppy at the end of the day now. How bad is that going to be with 50% more traffic on it all day long

I'm also not happy with losing Nastar, but I agree with zski's last comment about traffic flow. I think this will become the biggest problem this year. Losing both Broadway and Off Broadway greatly reduces the options for the skiers/boarders coming off the Summit and Excelsior/Lower Northway. Concentrating all of that traffic onto 2 trails instead of 3 will(imho) cause a) Upper Valley to get skied off earlier in the day, and b) push more intermediate/advanced skiers onto Easy Street.

The flow also could become a problem at the bottom, below midstation, as there are 4 terrain park sections(not inclding kids campus) below midstation;
1) Half pipe - entrance off of Boreen
2) Danny's Bridge/Brookside
3) Fox(was Lower Valley last year) - below race finish
4) Wolf and Wolf Run - depending on how often this open to the public - I heard it may be used for trainning the NYSEF kids.

Only time will tell, but having all of theses trails dedicated to terrain parks is one thing, but having them spead all over the mountain could be a problem as it will cause to much mixing of skiers/boarders with significantly different abilities on to many trails.

[Snowballs]

maybe it's time to become a Park Rat. The lil whipper snappers better not laugh at us old farts.