Vail Resorts Announces Plans for 2020/21 Ski and Snowboard Season with Comprehensive Focus on Safety

[mikel]

Agreed. It is nice to have local options that aren't involved with either pass in both Abasin and Loveland that can chart alternative courses to test what works best for them.

I totally agree with you. It's nice to have options. I was a bit surprised that Copper didn't go the A Basin route and have some blackout dates for Ikon this season not knowing what may or may not happen.

 

[Wasatchman]

Isn't buying a second or third or 4th pass for the same person exactly the type of gaming the system that Vail would be looking to stamp out?

Who says Vail is looking to stamp out any such thing. Their introduction of a reservation system is to manage a daily skier cap. If someone wants to buy multiple season passes then they could. Just like someone could "game" system on pow day by getting a private lesson for line cutting privileges. If someone wants to pay for it, i am sure vail is happy to oblige.[/QUOTE]

 

[John O]

Make no mistake, Vail has all of the algorithms for skier days, passes out on the hill, what lifts are used and when. Here is the one problem I have seen with Vail when they go solely on these numbers. If they look to see see what the traffic on 1/20/20 was and project those to 1/20/21, they do not take in account that 2020 was MLK Monday and 2021 is a Wednesday. We saw this with projectionds for Retail where True North, A Vail Resorts Retail, store would be way over staffed or understaffed because the projections were based on date, not day of the week. Not good.

Wow, that's embarrassing for them if it's true. I say this as someone who works for a company that's far, far smaller than Vail and also does year over year forecasting by date. We definitely put a lot more thought into our methods than that.

 

[Wasatchman]

I totally agree with you. It's nice to have options.

In Utah we have very few options at this point not affiliated with Ikon or Vail which makes me sad.

 

[jmeb]

on this point yes and no. without a big enough corporation to have datascientists and a software development team, there is not enough resources to push out real new solutions.

As someone who works managing a team of data scientists -- I can assure you small businesses continue to develop innovated solutions that work for them without us.

 

[Wasatchman]

Wow, that's embarrassing for them if it's true. I say this as someone who works for a company that's far, far smaller than Vail and also does year over year forecasting by date. We definitely put a lot more thought into our methods than that.

I received some "personalized" email from Vail that makes it clear they have a lot of work to do related to IT

 

[Philpug]

I received some "personalized" email from Vail that makes it clear they have a lot of work to do related to IT

If you think about all of the resorts Vail had bought, each had their own proprietary IT system...it is really not that surprising. We had these conversations going back to Epicski, we proposed that they integrate user profiles for Epicski and EpicMix because we got multiple e-mails a week from people looking for their EpicMix photos or race results. I still think it was an opportunity lost from Vail not knowing what they had with Epicski.

 

[Joe Strummer]

We'll see how it works at Whistler. At the moment (and the view is it will be in place for a long time to come) there is a ban on Americans entering Canada. Many Americans own properties in Whistler and the Epic Pass saw in increase in Americans at Whistler last season. In addition, anyone entering Canada (Canadian or not) has to quarantine for 14 days. So no Americans and foreign tourists at Whistler unless something changes.

The implications for the other ski hills in BC are not good.

I am currently doing many rain dances to the vaccine gods.

 

[fatbob]

You can also buy a local and epicday that isnt technically the same. As another point, I already have 3 identities with Vail just due to the random ways I've purchased different products in the past and forgetting which email I used. Each gets epicpass promo email. I dont think you need to get this complicated or clandestine. Just within the family account, your long lost identical twin with a different middle name suddenly wants to take up skiing...but never on the same reserved day as you. You can sharpie on an evil goatee for the picture to keep it clear.
On a moral level i think buying 2 passes is the same buyout as making a cabal that is buying a sham lesson. Not pristine, but no worse than that.

Again, it'd probably make more sense and be a bit cleaner to just buy from 2 vendors rather then doubling down on vr, unless truly vr is your only game you want to ski at.

The real gamesmanship in my book that stoops 1 level lower is the direct manipulaton of the reservation system or trying to mine data out of it, by automating making/cancel reservations or aggregating people's results.

Of course vail may disagree and ban you for the season for less, but you were already getting locked out anyway.

It's funny how we can have different perspectives on ethics (I prefer to leave morals out of it as that is a very polluted swamp filled with religion and history). I regard buying my way out of a problem (as in your double pass or sham lesson) as less ethical than being smart to the extent allowed by the "law". So I'd have no problem in trying to derive my own data where VR won't supply it and/or holding week of reservations until it became clear I absolutely wouldn't use them. But I'd sort of look at buying into a server situated directly on the Broomfield server farm (or whatever tech piping hedgies use to get a microscopic timing advantage on the market.) as a bit much. Possibly it's just because I'm a cheapskate and unAmerican in my lack of respect for richest man wins.

 

[raytseng]

Don't get me wrong, for the double pass, im not saying its fully ethical or outright advising this. If my post came off like pure advice or my personal beliefs, then that's my fault for not framing the situation well.
My bringing it up was more a thought experiment in comparing what would a person that would consider a sham lesson most likely do as their best option at their level of ethics.
No matter what you personally do, a factor for next season is to anticipate and predict what other people are most likely to do, even if it is distasteful to your morals and ethics. We shouldn't pretend these options don't exist and people aren't going to take them, and not talk about it.

For the data mining, i dont see people hacking of the servers or sniffing the traffic or anything nearly as nefarious as that which is outright criminal. It can be much more out in the open and within the law.
I imagine some entrepreneur putting up a website call it Vailreservations4you.com, that the public willing can sign up for, and it will automatically claim reservations for you as 1 feature.
The next feature is to aggregate and help reveal secret data by combining the power of willing participants to get an edge over people who don't use the site. e.g. It'd use 300 member accounts and temporarily reserve each day to determine when it hits the secret capacity limit, then cancel all those reservations. Then it can report back the estimated capacity to the members so they can use their reserved days optimally for only the most desired days.

 

[ForeverSki]

But some entrepreneur putting up a website call it Vailreservations4you.com. that public can sign up for, and it will automatically claim reservations for you as 1 feature.

In the CPA world, there is a service to which you can subscribe where they continually robocall and hold in queue multiple different IRS phone numbers. When a service subscriber wants to talk to the IRS, they enter a PIN and take over the next position held in the queue. Aggregately, this can save many hours of being on hold. But if you’re just a lowly public taxpayer, you get the pleasure of waiting and waiting.

Instinctively, I dislike such schemes of buying your way out of a problem or into privilege. But then, when the DC beltway or I-66 is congested, I’d pay to travel the 495 HOT lanes or the Dulles Greenway.

 

[tball]

I received some "personalized" email from Vail that makes it clear they have a lot of work to do related to IT

In terms of recruiting and retaining IT staff, I continue to laugh about Katz moving the company HQ to Broomfield from Avon.

So many geeks would jump at the chance to live and work in the mountains. While in Broomfield, VR has to compete for talent in a major tech hub that has large offices that include Google, Amazon, and Oracle. And they use MS crap.

Ha, I found this fantastic quote from Katz when they moved to Broomfield: “It’s got some very nice mountain views,” Katz said Tuesday.

VR headquarters to move to Broomfield

AVON

www.vaildaily.com

 

[Wilhelmson]

For big price sports events there were teams of people who continually logged in when tickets were released to turn for a profit. Usually low priced labor.

If I could accurately model the best snow days to reserve would it be more nefarious to sell this data for a small profit or keep it all to myself?

 

[jmeb]

If I could accurately model the best snow days to reserve would it be more nefarious to sell this data for a small profit or keep it all to myself?

If you could accurately predict snow days better than current forecasters, you could make far far more money selling that service to various industries than you ever could selling it to skiers directly.

Meterological systems are incredibly difficult.

 

[tball]

Again, it'd probably make more sense and be a bit cleaner to just buy from 2 vendors rather then doubling down on vr, unless truly vr is your only game you want to ski at.

Thanks for the idea of multiple vendors. For peak days and powder days, it will be great to have multiple options to increase the odds of getting on the hill. It seems purchasing a couple of four packs in addition to one's main pass could make even more sense this season.

 

[David Chaus]

Or, maybe just because of Covid, the crowds of casual skiers and boarders don't show up as much, or at all.
And/or day ticket sales are limited, and as a result reservations are only needed on weekends, or are easy to obtain, to the point of not needing reservations anymore.

Naive and wishful thinking, or prophetic? Time will tell.

 

[noncrazycanuck]

At Whistler the mid week non holiday upload is usually walk on and the majority of our skiers come from a lot farther away than Vancouver.
Even if the lifts only run at 50% lines are going to be shorter. Doubt reservations will be needed here if the border restrictions remain.

 

[DanoT]

Whistler is going to need to woo Vancouver day skiers like never before, but the bigger question will be: what will skiing in B.C. look like without the Aussies as both customers and staff? (A lack of US skiers only really affects Whistler and to some extent Sun Peaks).

 

[fatbob]

Whistler is going to need to woo Vancouver day skiers like never before,

An interesting challenge given that they have almost gone out of their way previously to make such day skiers feel unwelcome.

Re interior BC, IME the Aussie effect is huge so it's indeed interesting. Maybe they'll be competing with Whistler for both staff and visitors from the same smaller pool.

 

[DanoT]

Re interior BC, IME the Aussie effect is huge so it's indeed interesting. Maybe they'll be competing with Whistler for both staff and visitors from the same smaller pool.

Most of the B.C. resorts have local population that will have a higher than normal number of out of work residents, due to Covid, who can fill the resort jobs usually filled by Aussies. Even Whistler has Pemberton and Squamish near by but Big White and Sun Peaks both have populations an hour away; too far to commute for min. wage especially with Canada's high gas prices. Finding regional employees who will stay in staff housing for the winter is the probable answer.

My boss at Sun Peaks' Elevation Ski & Bike might actually want me to work in the store this winter (instead of being a sponsored on hill unofficial store ambassador with no actual paid hours). However I am going to inform him that at my age I will not work indoors and only work if they decide to do outdoor demos/rentals. OTOH with few out of town skiers there will be very few ski rentals this season.