See that pic? Taken last week at Arapahoe Basin. See those stats? Likes: 499, comments: 103, shares: 193. Here’s the crazy part, they weren’t even making snow. It was just a test. According to the GM, Alan Henceroth:

Mark turned the snowmaking system on this morning. It isn’t quite cold enough to significantly make snow. He is just blowing out the cobwebs and making sure everything is running well.

Apparently, despite the lack of white-stuff post-test, people noticed, include KDVR:
http://www.kdvr.com/news/kdvr-arapahoe-basin-tests-snow-guns-20110929,0,5602858.story

Isolated incident? Not quite. Nearly a month earlier Loveland was already posting pics from their tests.

Once again, hundreds of likes, lots of comments. By mid September, after more pictures and videos, local news outlets started to pic up on the news:

9-News
http://www.9news.com/news/local/article/219081/346/Loveland-snow-guns-getting-set-up-to-start-spraying-

The Denver Channel
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/29181761/detail.html

Yesterday, Copper Mountain announced (albeit temporarily, the post was no longer there when I checked an hour or two later) they had started making snow for the season. Their opening day is still a month away, which means this may not be a serious attempt at building a base but rather a chance to turn on the guns. The result after just 6 minutes?

Years ago, I remember Killington being one of, if not THE, first in the country to “blow the mice out” of their snowmaking system. Now, in a world of social media, imagine how much exposure and attention east coast resorts, who rely almost exclusively on snowmaking to get open each year, could get by posting similar test runs and pushing them out to local media?

The Takeaway
Seems that just like the teasers that come before movie premieres, a snowmaking teaser can build much buzz and anticipation about the upcoming “real deal” long before that day comes.

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.