I love the stuff that midwest resorts come up with. Simple and clever, they don’t all have a giant brand hanging over the GM’s head that might make other resort heads riskaphobic. I’ve seen a handful of interesting offers pop up lately from these smaller mountains, but this one from Chestnut Mountain, Illinois caught my eye.

So, from now until October 21, you can buy a season pass for $299 if, and only if, you buy that pass along with three of your friends, family, neighbors, coworkers, or random people you meet outside the pass office. A decade or so ago, I’d ride solo at Brighton’s Quad Wednesday’s and simply count on meeting a few other people outside the ticket office in my same situation.

But here’s the hitch with Chestnut’s pass that really got the wheel’s turning: that’s your only option. At least on their website:

It’s one thing to give skiers a chance to save money by offering a group discount. It’s another thing for that to be the only option.

What I Like
I like the focus on groups. Like having early morning cycling buddies, it’s easier to get up to the mountain and make full use of your pass when you have three other people expecting you to be there.

I also like the restriction. You can only buy it online and that’s the online thing you can buy. It may not work, but it’s a great test to see who renews and who doesn’t. Will former pass holders who typically fly solo force themselves to find others who are buying passes in order to get the discount, wait and buy a pass for more cash, or buy a pass somewhere else?

What I Don’t Like
The cap of 4. If there is a group of 5 friends who always ride together, which friend gets left out in the cold to find a group so he too can get the discount? I wonder if $299 each for 4+ passes might be a nice asterisk and help out those scenarios, as well as parents with 3+ children take advantage.

I also worry about the possibility (though I don’t know their regular pass prices) of simply handing out discounts to skiers who would otherwise be happy to pay more for their pass. I’d study the numbers pretty closely after this one to see how it all shakes out.

Either way, I like the idea and the experiment. Buddy passes and 2-for-1s can encourage groups of skiers instead of singles, but can the same concept work for season passes? There’s only one way to find out. In two months, we’ll still have no idea if it can…but Chestnut will.

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.