If you’re going to throw an event that kicks of the season, builds pre-snow buzz, and sells passes, you might as well make it rock. No half-baked efforts, just a super good time and zero excuses not to attend. Brighton, just a half hour outside of Salt Lake City, is doing just that with Passapalooza. What started as a simple, yet fun sounded event, hasn’t necessary grown into anything massive, but with all the little add-ons they keep tossing into the mix, it’s making it harder and harder to resist. Guess that’s the point, huh?

It started with a low-budget, cool gig focused around movie premiers:

• Drive in style movie premiers of “Retrospect” and “Ammo”
• Skate Session from 4-7
• Discounted season pass sales
• Get a free pair of Skullcandy headphones with a pass purchase
• BBQ
• Free admission

Nothing expensive or elaborate like Hot Dogs and Hand Rails, but a good time nonetheless. With a crowd already planning to gather, they started adding on more and more features to capitalize on the high attendance and perhaps reach some of the undecided folks or people that don’t want a season pass:

• Rental demo gear on sale during event
• Free lift ticket with every demo/rental board/skis purchase
• New vendors giving out swag (Electric Visual, Remind Insoles, Surface Skis, ThrityTwo, Neff Headwear, and more)
• Also snag a free Neff Beanie and TWSnow subscription with pass purchase

Granted, these aren’t huge, game changing add-ons, and I don’t know if Brighton already had all these lined up and just waited to announce it or if these were added later on, but I’ve always found success and seen power in slowly leaking more and more features (rather than all at once) as the even draws closer until the offer becomes too good to be true. If you have a long list of sweet stuff going down, try picking your top 5 to set the initial hook. Then, as the date approaches, release a new detail every few days to give you an excuse to reannounce the event and keep the buzz building. Works like a charm.

About Gregg & SlopeFillers
I've had more first-time visitors lately, so adding a quick "about" section. I started SlopeFillers in 2010 with the simple goal of sharing great resort marketing strategies. Today I run marketing for resort ecommerce and CRM provider Inntopia, my home mountain is the lovely Nordic Valley, and my favorite marketing campaign remains the Ski Utah TV show that sold me on skiing as a kid in the 90s.