There are so many awesome traditions around spring skiing.

Pond skims are one and snow snakes are another, but I’d add Boxzilla to the list as well. While Canyons put it on the map, many resorts have followed suit.

Each time a resort lines up their collection of boxes, a few things are bound to happen.

#1) Smiles
First, skiers and riders have a ton of fun. People are cheering each other on, laughing with those who bail and celebrating with those who make it to the end. We want skiers to have a great time and this absolutely helps.

#2) Great Content
Every Boxzilla video is that perfect blend of being engaging – “will someone make it to the end” – and reflective of the joy of skiing. We want to keep people engaged as spring wraps up and, again, this absolutely helps.

#3) Accomplishment
But the reason both of these things exist is because Boxzilla adds both accomplishment to skiing. Listen, skiing is great. But humans are hardwired to seek after things with finish lines, with a clear winner, with challenge that can be overcome and, most importantly, a clear moment when you know that you’ve overcome that challenge.

That’s exactly what Boxzilla does. It’s small, but it gives something for skiers to strive for, to work at, and to accomplish.

The Beaver Mtn #Boxzilla is back, can you make it all the way across? The forecast for today is a 50% chance of snow, with a possibility for 1-2” this afternoon and a high temp around 38 degrees. After freezing last night, the snow should soften up nicely later this morning. pic.twitter.com/9Bx6HD8rjq

— Beaver Mountain (@skithebeav) March 31, 2022

Like training for a marathon, this striving creates a layer of behavior-changing motivation that is really, really hard to come by in skiing. Things that build on this idea would include:

• 100 day clubs
• Trying to ski every run
• Trying to ride every lift
• Hitting a certain # of vertical feet
• Season pass renewal streaks

Each of these things has a clear start, end, and challenge in between. And, like Boxzilla, they get people to visit when they normally wouldn’t, ski when there are other things to do, and put the sport higher on their priority lists because that haven’t quite reached that carrot.

In my opinion, our sport doesn’t need one or two of these things, we need all of them…and more. We need carrots for every persona at every level that give skiers a reason to ski/visit/do more, a better experience along the way, and a nice slice of satisfaction and sense of accomplishment at the end.

We need more Boxzillas.

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.