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In the era of mega passes I’ve found myself a little frustrated that the resorts with the biggest opportunity to offer a luxury, premium, exclusive skiing experience are the ones who have decided to go for something close to the opposite.

They play a volume game.

Right now this model is working, but it’s also evolving and I hope we’ll consider that just because we’re playing a volume game doesn’t mean we have to sacrifice the experience. As I’ve talked about a few times over the years, the experience I had attending the Wednesday practice round of The Masters in 2018 is something I think about a lot as a marketer and skier. A huge crowd of people – over 30,000 – joined us that day trying to see the few dozen golfers on a 350 acre course (most of which patrons can’t walk on) and yet…

…the experience was incredible.

Why?

So…why? How did they pull that off? That’s the question I’ve been asking myself a lot since then. Now, there are certainly some evolutionary ebbs and flows between the town and golf club I’m not familiar with, but let me share a few things I did notice.

#1 – Spread Out: by Design

Yes, there are iconic areas every fan wants to see – Amen Corner, for example – but they also do a great job of using things like signage and walkway placement to help most people not just stay in one spot all day (some do) but be able to wander throughout the course during the day.

Every hole is given as much attention as Amen Corner including a name, story, and some unique characteristic.

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The historic moments from each are constantly being elevated by the stories their communications team tells. They did this so well and elevated each corner of the course so effectively that you honestly felt if you didn’t see the whole course and just sat in one place all day, you would have missed something. 

Compare that to how many skiers lap the same chair all day? I think there’s an interesting lesson there.

#2 – Food: Affordable, Tasty, Crazy Fast

Like skiers on your mountain, folks at a golf tournament need to eat. This grub, however, had three key attributes.

First, it’s crazy affordable. We spent less on our lunch at Augusta National than we did for dinner at a small diner along the freeway on our way home. They weighed the value of someone spending a lot of money on food and someone being well fed during their experience and decided there is better value in the latter

Second, getting food is incredibly fast. I got in a line at one point with probably 50 people ahead of me and I had my food in hand and paid for within 5 minutes. The design and flow was extremely impressive. Yes, they have to simply menu options, but the result was super impressive and incredibly convenient.

Third, they’re all over the course and easy to find. The buildings are large and visible, close to high traffic areas of the course where folks are likely to be hanging out.

The idea of fast, affordable, easy-to-grab food was a gamechanger for a day on a golf course, but on at a ski resort with ski boots and three times as many calories being burned? That’s a really intriguing idea.

#3 – The Town: Some Level of Balance

On a golf course that size you could probably squeeze another 10,000-20,000 people in there. Yet, they didn’t. And in town, the parking felt surprisingly easy. We had a little walk to the course, but the business whose parking we paid for offered a paid shuttle so there at least was some option to avoid that. Yes, Masters week probably puts a strain on the community, but it also is a boon and there seemed to be a decent synergy between them.

But even as we came into town and left later that day, we never got stuck in crazy lines. It seemed clear, at least to me, that they’d found a balance between people and too many people and sold tickets within those limits.

Not Impossible

Have the mega passes gone too far in terms of volume? Probably so. But I think it’s important to remember that part of the issue isn’t just the crowds, it’s how we manage them.

Spreading people out is possible, keeping them spread out (and fed) is possible, servicing them faster is possible, making sure there is balance with capacity outside of the mountain on roads and in town is possible. We’re not the only industry that has dealt with stuff like this, but I think at times we forget to look outside of our world for ideas and lessons.

The Masters, in my experience, is absolutely one we could take some inspiration from.

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.