“Vail Resorts pays top dollar for iconic Canadian ski resort Whistler Blackcomb”

Vail Resorts is revolutionizing the ski industry by providing a better product for a lower price and they’re doing it all in plain sight!

Used to be every ski hill was unique. With an individual owner. Usually a cranky sort who was good with tools but bad with money. Then the real estate developers took hold, believing there wasn’t enough cash in the mountain and if they could just build condos and sell land…they could become profitable.

And for a while this worked, but then they ran out of land.

Les Otten decided to roll up the ski areas back in the nineties, he upgraded infrastructure and was then hit by a few bad winters, which decimated his mostly east coast based empire.

And then came Rob Katz. A Wall Streeter who left New York after 9/11 and was installed on Vail’s board. Whereupon he learned the lay of the land, became Chairman and CEO, and came up with the Epic Pass.

You see skiing was seen as expensive, so he lowered the price, dramatically. Not only was a season pass now a third the price, it worked at multiple areas. So, people lined up to purchase it in droves. Sales went from four figures to 500,000 per year and have been increasing at a fifteen percent rate per annum. Some buyers never skied at all, others did much more, and then Vail made even more money on food and retail sales, yes, the resort operator owned a lot of the establishments at the base.

This isn’t that different from Amazon. Which promised low prices for a gold-plated product and then sold two-day delivery for $79 as Prime and kept laying free perks on top of that, like music and movies and TV. And now, Amazon is so far ahead of the game not only are there no competitors, it’s decimating physical retail, it’s a better experience.

Vail is the best experience.

Hard core skiers hate this. They hate Vail, a notoriously flat mountain whose main selling point is its glorious Back Bowls, Vail is for everyman, whereas the rabble-rousers want to keep skiing for themselves. If it sounds like music, it should, forever we’ve had self-anointed experts saying mainstream taste was crap, that people should be listening to what they wanted them to. But now the public ignores them. There’s just too much noise in the marketplace to pay attention to naysayers. And pop, hated by the cognoscenti, rules.

Now Katz and Vail didn’t just lower the price, they invested in infrastructure. After the completion of the replacement of Chair 17 in SunUp Bowl this year there will be no low speed fixed grip chairlifts left on Vail Mountain, other than those servicing beginners. Wouldn’t you like to ski where the lifts run at two and a half times the speed and the slopes are groomed to perfection?

Most people would.

But lower prices and infrastructure improvements were only the beginning. Vail went on a buying spree, a strategic buying spree, purchasing ski resorts in the Midwest because…if the pass worked at your local hill, and you could ski for free out west, wouldn’t you make the trip? I went to Big Sky and Telluride the past two years and a few days of skiing cost me as much as my Epic Pass that allowed me to ski for every day for one low price all over the world.

Yes, Vail bought Perisher in Australia. So when Aussies wanted to ski during their summer, they’d come to Vail resorts, where their passes worked.

And now Vail has bought Whistler, the huge area outside of Vancouver, and the rest of the industry is stunned, they’re overwhelmed, they don’t know how to compete. Vail also owns three areas in Tahoe. And now Park City, as well as major resorts on Colorado’s Front Range.

Of course, income inequality has made it so that skiing is no longer a middle class sport, but ironically, the barrier to entry at Vail, the biggest and the baddest, is the lowest. Sure, day rates are exorbitant, but no one pays those, everybody buys a pass, or purchases tickets in advance at a discount online.

And climate change is wreaking havoc on the sport but that’s why Vail has diversified, the Pacific Northwest, Tahoe and the Rockies are three distinct weather zones, it’s rare they’ve all got a drought in the same year.

And this paradigm could be replicated, someone could step up and compete, but no one has, they’re just too stunned, set in their old ways.

It’s kind of like music. Where the oldsters didn’t see digital and complain that Spotify and streaming ate their lunch.

And rather than convince people what a good deal ten bucks a month is, they bad-mouth the site, driving people away from it!

And, of course, there is no piracy in skiing. You can climb up yourself, but very few people do this. So, there’s no free tier at Vail, but…

The Epic Pass started off under five hundred dollars a month. You broke even in less than five skiing days. Music streaming is a bargain, but no one in the artistic community wants to spread the message, for fear of being left out, since in the era of consolidation winners take all and the losers are screwed. But that’s got nothing to do with Spotify, that’s a cultural issue.

However, after improving the product and rolling up additional areas what did Vail do…IT RAISED THE PRICE! Now, an Epic Pass costs almost twice as much, after less than a decade. But Vail did raise the day price, so the break even remains the same, it’s still a bargain. And it’s still cheaper than a season pass at most standalone resorts.

Music streaming could be five bucks a month. With no free tier. And then after everybody signs up, the price could slowly be raised, like Vail.

This is not rocket science. It’s about providing a premium product at a low price, a deal, and after people are hooked raising prices.

How do you get everybody to buy a streaming music subscription?

You might tell me no one needs it, but did everybody need two day delivery with Amazon Prime?

Music streaming is here to stay, it already won.

Want to multiply the number of subscriptions? Say how good it is, not how bad. Talk about the value. Get everybody excited about music, word of mouth is king.

There’s plenty of money to be made when everybody gets on board.

But those inured to the old ways refuse to do this, they muddy the water, they trot out false economics and spread hatred and if you subscribe to Spotify you’re seen at the devil.

No, the devil is the naysayers.

Sure, Daniel Ek is rich, but so is Rob Katz! When we start denigrating those who come up with a new solution that satisfies customers we’ve truly lost the American way.

People love convenience and quality. They love cheap.

Vail has found a way to provide this.

The music industry keeps alienating its customers whilst complaining prices are too low.

Is this any way to run a business?

NO!