2013/2014 Season Pass

IF ORDA where to offer a WF, Gore and Belleayre full season pass how do you think it would affect each mountain if at all?

Do you think it would cause much of a competitive advantage for Belleayre over the other 3 Catskill ski areas?

If you live in southern NY or NJ would you buy one?

Belleyre would have more traffic.

Yes.


Yes.

I have a house near gore so I probably wouldn't pay extra to ski belleayre. I leave my stuff up north, so day trips to belleayre dont work for me. But I think it would appeal to a lot of skiers in nj. I bet a lot of belleayre pass holders would like to spend a long weekend or two at gore or face. But if the cost was only a little higher I'd consider it and store my equipment in the car.

Tom

Its my first day back - PLEASE don't get me started on this Bell crap again.

Orda can not charge one dime more for adding a mediocre Catskill ski area to its Gore and WF customers passes.  Who would pay any more for that???  Yeah you are going to say all them city folks but really that makes up a pretty small percentage of the total WF season pass base.  The people with passes from down south mostly have homes or steady lodging in either the LP or Gore area and are not going to day trip Bell.

The proof would be in the pudding - Orda should offer a WF pass, A WF / Gore pass, a Bell only pass, and a all three and see how few actually pay extra to add Bell.  The WF / Gore pass is what I would buy and it would be by far the best seller.

I'm skiing the Cats maybe 5.5 (LOL) times a year now.  The family isn't core enough to drive to the Adks every weekend so I'm day tripping. I got a pass to Plattekill.

ausable skier wrote

The proof would be in the pudding - Orda should offer a WF pass, A WF / Gore pass, a Bell only pass, and a all three and see how few actually pay extra to add Bell.  The WF / Gore pass is what I would buy and it would be by far the best seller.

Agreed do it.  I would buy one.  

Everything I'm hearing says it's going to happen.

Harvey44 wrote

I'm skiing the Cats maybe 5.5 (LOL) times a year now.  The family isn't core enough to drive to the Adks every weekend so I'm day tripping.

ausable skier wrote

The proof would be in the pudding - Orda should offer a WF pass, A WF / Gore pass, a Bell only pass, and a all three and see how few actually pay extra to add Bell.  The WF / Gore pass is what I would buy and it would be by far the best seller.

Agreed do it.  I would buy one.  

Everything I'm hearing says it's going to happen.

I'm fine with offering the options but what I'm afraid of is asking WF skiers to pay more for adding Bell to thier pass.  I bet that is exactly what will happen and then I will not be the only screaming bloody murder over Bell.  I'd pay more than a WF only pass to have Gore on my pass though.  If Orda want to find out what their customers really think about Bell ask them to pay more for it on thier pass - the message will be loud and clear at that point.  You will hear the screaming in NJ from up here.

Ausable, come join the 21st century. Vail corp has been killing it out west with multi mountain passes and pricing for over a decade. The East deserves something like that, somewhere. Trust me, it will actually save skiing. Lift tickets are absurdly expensive. This will create the illusion for the 8 day a year skier that they are getting a whole lot, when, in reality, skier traffic will not increase much at your beloved WF. And then, maybe some of those mountain owners over in Vermont will be forced to compete with their own partnerships. I once owned a combo Killington/Sugarbush season pass. Heaven. Bring that on. Ski hills are pricing themselves out of business otherwise.

I heard that you are going to have to pick up your WF pass at Bell and only after you've done 15000 of vert on endless runouts...

I think ORDA has so many assets that they should let you bundle your season pass to your preferences.  In other words, there should be WF only, Gore only, B only and ski area combo WF/G, WF/B, G/B or all three and WF/Mt. VanHo or WF/Oval. Personally, we ski WF exclusively so adding B is not value added to me, but if I could purchase WF/Oval passes next season for the price I paid for our WF/G passes this year, I would.

Not a fan of Belle here.  An all ORDA pass would have no effect on me....I'd still drive right by on my way to Platty.

Also, IMHO, a cheap all ORDA pass would have little to no effect on Vt. resorts' pricing.  Different clientele,  less accessible, fewer hills and not enough fluff to get the hordes over from Vt.  

Harvey44 wrote

I heard that you are going to have to pick up your WF pass at Bell and only after you've done 15000 of vert on endless runouts...

I pee'd myself!!!!

ausable skier wrote

The proof would be in the pudding - Orda should offer a WF pass, A WF / Gore pass, a Bell only pass, and a all three and see how few actually pay extra to add Bell.  The WF / Gore pass is what I would buy and it would be by far the best seller.

I'd love to see a Whiteface/Belleayre pass without Gore. Not 100% sure I'd buy it, but I'd rather pay "extra" for Belleayre than Gore ... just has to do with geography for me.

And I wish I could get a gore only pass for the same price as a whiteface only pass.

Another twist on the multi mountain pass would be cheap (e.g $25.00) tickets at another mountain if you have a pass. That might even generate additional revenue for the hills.

Tom

i might sample belleayre if there was no added cost but i would like to get back to cheap passes like the west offers. since the eastern ski seasons appears to be shortening by several weeks at both ends, i am finding a hard time justifying paying 750 bucks for gore. i might go for the empire card next year. if the multiple resort-low price passes work out west, why not here?

Face4Me wrote

Harvey44 wrote

I heard that you are going to have to pick up your WF pass at Bell and only after you've done 15000 of vert on endless runouts...

I pee'd myself!!!!

Me too

That is the funniest thing I've ever seen Harv post

Benny Profane wrote

Ausable, come join the 21st century. Vail corp has been killing it out west with multi mountain passes and pricing for over a decade. The East deserves something like that, somewhere. Trust me, it will actually save skiing. Lift tickets are absurdly expensive. This will create the illusion for the 8 day a year skier that they are getting a whole lot, when, in reality, skier traffic will not increase much at your beloved WF. And then, maybe some of those mountain owners over in Vermont will be forced to compete with their own partnerships. I once owned a combo Killington/Sugarbush season pass. Heaven. Bring that on. Ski hills are pricing themselves out of business otherwise.

Does anyone remember when I posted this list:
Epic Season Pass to ski at:-
-Vail
-Beaver Creek
-Breckenridge
-Keystone
-Heavenly
-Northstar
-Kirkwood: $659.
Unlimited Riding at Kirkwood, no restrictions: $379
Unlimited Gold Pass for Squaw Valley AND Alpine Meadows: $749

Season Pass at Belleayre: $667.
Hunter Mountain: $749 Early Bird, Currently $849
Gore: $869
Windham: $1259
Stratton: $1569

So yeah, RIP OFF! The Vail Epic Season pass is just that: Epic.........

Regarding the topic at hand, I doubt any gore/face riders would pay extra for Belleayre, but I am sure a bunch of Belleayre riders would pay a bit more to include the other ORDA parks, gore and face. After all it would justify a longer drive / paying for lodging if you didn't have to shell out 75 bux per person per day. I see that the Gore / Whiteface passes are way more expensive than Belle already.....

First of all, Face4Me, I'm pretty sure the market for a Bell/WF pass that excludes Gore is only you (or you and 10 or 12 other people). I can't imagine why they would do something like that.

Secondly, for everyone complaining about the high prices of Eastern Resorts compared to western resorts repeat after me: Free Market. Tickets are priced at what the market forces will bear. Out west, it's beneficial for the resorts to offer season passes at cheaper rates because a lot of their properties are "destination" resorts and they know they'll make money off of lodging, off hill activities, etc. Here, you have to cater to the day trip crowd a lot more. And day trippers just don't spend money like vacationers.

I bet ORDA could add Belleayre to the pass, raise prices $150, and people would still pay it. Why? Because if you want to ski lift served every weekend in the Adirondacks, Gore and WF are pretty much your only choices (Hickory is inconsistent, Big Tupper is Closed, Oak is small, Titus is too far away, and West is weak). The die hards will have no choice but to pay. You might lose a couple of the 8-10 day a year skiers, but I'm sure that ORDA has a bunch of pencil pushers who make specific calculations and know exactly where the price/demand curve yields the most money.

At ORDA's Media Day at WF last month, they announced they would have a 3-mountain pass for 2013-14 available before the end of this season.  It sounds like it's definitely going to happen, or at least it sounded that way then.

I think a Belle / Gore / WF pass will provide a significant advantage for Belle over the other 3 Catskill ski areas.

If I lived in southern NY or NJ I would definitely buy one.  Living in Saratoga, I wouldn't pay extra to have the Belle option.

It will be interesting to see how they price the 3-mtn pass.  Just a guess, but I suspect they will keep things simple.  Maybe the option of either a 3-mtn pass or a Belle-only pass.  In theory it shouldn't cost ORDA any money to offer Gore / WF skiers the option to ski at Belle, so there shouldn't be an increase in pass prices just because there's now a 3rd mountain available.  That said, we may well see price increases due to rising costs and simply becaue the market can (likely) bear it.  Compare an ORDA pass to the price of a Vermont pass - there's plenty of room to raise prices.

mattchuck2 wrote

First of all, Face4Me, I'm pretty sure the market for a Bell/WF pass that excludes Gore is only you (or you and 10 or 12 other people). I can't imagine why they would do something like that.

As I said, I don't know that I'd pay extra for a Whiteface/Belleayre pass, but I'd rather have Whiteface/Belleayre than Whiteface/Gore. The Gore option is useless to me, and I suspect the many others in the NYC metro area who also have homes in the Lake Placid area.

Certainly if I lived in Clifton Park, Saratoga or Glens Falls, I'd prefer the Whiteface/Gore option.

I just think that if they offered the option to pair Whiteface with Gore or Belleayre, there'd be a fair number of people who'd take the Belleayre option.

From a "why would they do that" perspective, I don't really ever go to Gore. In the 9 years I've had a Whiteface/Gore pass, I've only gone to Gore 3 times (and then, only because my kids were going with their ski club so I tagged along). There was no real "benefit" to ORDA, or to me, in this arrangement.

Over those same 9 years, I've gone to Belleayre on mid-week day trips probably about 2 or 3 times. On each of those trips, I went with friends and we all bought day passes. I don't do this very often, because quite frankly, it's not worth spending the money for those lift tickets when I'm skiing at Whiteface every weekend.

Now, if on the other hand, I had "free" access to Belleayre included with my Whiteface pass, I'm sure that I'd go to Belleayre much more often, most likely bringing friends along who would be buying day passes. I'd get the added benefit of some extra ski days each season and ORDA would benefit by potentially selling some "collateral" day passes that they might not otherwise sell.

There may not be a lot of people in my situation, but what would be the downside of offering this option?

For downstate NY and NJ all possible combos could have value to different people.

For Capital District and North, Belle is not in the mix.

Would be VERY cool if all options were on the table.

I don't see why you'd have to raise the price much.