Welcome back to the Bob Web Sens podcast.

My guest today is ROBCATS, CEO and chairperson to Build Resorts.

Rob, how'd you come up with the idea for the epic Pass?

Well, Bob, it's great to be here.

I appreciate you having me on the show.

And yeah, the team and I came up with the idea way back, thinking about how do we provide stability to a business that everybody thought was totally dependent on whether and uh, it was critical for us to do that to make obviously the financial situation for our company better, but it was also critical for us to do that to provide more stable employment, more stable dynamics for our local communities.

And so you know, it's really been quite transformational.

So was the main goal to even out revenue or to what degree was it to raise the revenue or to get more skiers involved.

The main goal was really to get people to buy their skiing before the season began, so that we'd have more consistent visitation year in and year out, and that people would you know, ski more even you know during times when maybe the snow wasn't as good.

But then we also felt like because we were reducing the price so much that it would ultimately, yeah, we'd get more people into the sport.

And actually, when you look back over the last you know, twenty years, we've seen real growth.

Best you know, two years ever in the US ski industry history was two of the last three.

So do you think that the epic pass alone has driven that increase or do you think it's got more coming out of COVID or other factors.

I think there's no doubt that COVID helped in terms of I think you know, we were a local option for people to take, you know, vacations too, and it was outdoors, so that definitely helped.

But I think last year was maybe a better because last year wasn't a COVID related year, and if anything, I think we were seeing kind of a decline from the COVID peaks, But last year I think highlighted that.

Yeah, probably COVID activated a bunch of dormant skiers.

But when you look even you know, look over twenty years, you know, the peak year way back when was probably in the high forties.

Then it was the low fifties, and it was a mid fifties, then you know, the high fifties.

Now we're in the low sixties.

So I think you've seen this pretty consistent, you know, increase, and I would say it's it's probably some corollary effects.

So because the Epic Pass and then you know the Icon Pass and all the other passes that have been created since, because they've stabilized the industry, it has made the industry safer to invest.

And so you've seen a lot more money go into ski areas around North America, actually around the world.

And so it's quite a heyday in terms of the amount of new projects, new upgrades that you're seeing, and I think that has also brought people into the sport.

Okay, you have a business background, you come up with the idea of the Epic Pass.

Tell us about the actual process of running the numbers.

How do you come up with the numbers the spreadsheets to say this is a good idea.

Yeah, Well, for the Epic Pass itself, we knew right we were reducing the price of a season pass for us from I think it was sixteen hundred or seventeen hundred dollars and we reduced it down to six hundred dollars.

So we knew right away that there were a whole bunch of people who were buying season passes from us, we were going to lose money on them right at the outfit, and so we factored that in and then what we were saying was how many additional people could sell an Epic pass too, And then a part of that was how many people would be new, you know, kind of coming into At that point, we only had five resorts, so how many would be new people and to Veil be for Greek, Breckenridge, key Stone or Heavenly, And then how many people would be lifted ad buyers that might have skied two days, three days, five days, but with the Epic pass right, they'd ski eight days or seven days.

In other words, we were looking for both building frequency from people and then bringing new people in.

And so we looked at all that and actually in the first year of the Epic Past we were it was great.

We sold a lot of passes, but it was nowhere near what we thought it could be.

And it really taught us that to really convince people to use a new product one takes a long time, and two marketing was going to be critical to how we delivered on that.

I happened to be in Veil the day was announced.

I walked down to the gondole and was shocked.

But tell me about the marketing challenges and how you reach the potential ski audience today.

Yeah, well, I think, by the way, I do remember that day as well.

I was in Veil.

I think we were doing news hits from the from the basement gondola.

I think at that time, I can't remember.

And then, you know, we also had a mad rush of people who were going in to buy the past because they all thought we had made a mistake and so they were convinced that we were going to take it away and you know, reverse the whole thing.

You know, at that time when we launched it, the real challenge was, Yeah, like most people thought that if you were going to buy a season pass, you only did that because you were a local.

And so most destination skiers, even if it made sense for them to buy the past, they weren't looking at it because they just didn't think that that was for them.

And so back then it was hard because we didn't have emails for everybody, we didn't have everybody's data, we didn't have any of that.

So we were really focused on a lot of traditional media approaches in terms of you know, getting into some display ads and online, a bunch of traditional ads that we were running still in a lot of the ski magazines or newspapers, and then we were doing a lot of kind of I don't know, unique stunts of sorts.

So I had to show how many, you know, we had people skiing every mountain, We had people, you know, showing how you could use it to you know, ski throughout the year and what you could.

Do with it.

So, you know, it was it was much tougher.

Today we're in a totally different spot, right We have emails.

You know, we have like twenty five million people in our database.

You know, we have you know, basically almost everybody who has skied is somehow in one of our databases, unless you know, you kind of have a home and asspen and have never stepped foot in one of our resorts or something like that.

And now, yeah, we had a heavy effort to email people.

So our goal was really to get away from traditional meat media advertising or even digital advertising and really focus on how to communicate one to one with the guests over email, which served us incredibly well and responsible for a huge amount of our growth over the past fifteen to twenty years.

Over the last three to four years, it's really shifted because email has become kind of degenerated as a channel.

People don't open email, especially younger folks twenty to thirty really don't open email.

And so what we're doing right now is we're pivoting towards social channels.

We're pivoting towards direct engagement through our app and on mobile, and so we're really kind of moving that one to one relationship into a different spot.

So where'd you grow up?

I grew up in Nurshell, New York, about thirty minutes north of Manhattan, famous for the I think it was the Dick Van Dykes show exactly supposedly took place there.

Okay, And what did your parents do for a living?

My mom was an artist and my dad was a local attorney.

In How many siblings did you have?

I have one younger sibling, a brother.

And what is he up to?

He is in the mortgage finance business.

Lives still back east, living in West Hampstead of Long Island.

So what kind of kid were you?

What kind of kid was I?

I was?

You know, I was very into being active for sure, and you know, within my family.

I was kind of the first one to get the bug to go skiing.

It definitely, you know, growing up.

You know, I think that certainly the history of my family, you know, coming over from Eastern Europe and then settling and living in the Bronx and in Queen's Originally, yeah, like there was no skiing and anybody's background.

But I did a couple of class trips to Hunter Mountain, and even though I was you know, skiing in jeans and I was soaking and I'd be on the bus right back, it was, yeah, I really got I really got into it.

And then I was lucky that my cousin, first cousin and my uncle, you know, they their family really got into skiing and they started skiing around the Northeast, and then I would tag along with them, or sometimes my whole family would tag along with them, and they ultimately bought a house at Stratton, and so I did wind up spending kind of from I don't know, fifteen to twenty skiing at Stratton.

I actually remember at twenty I took my first trip out to Vail.

I remember I was twenty one or twenty two, I can remember, and my cousin had to give me like tips on how to transition my style from skiing on the ice in the east to the powder out west.

So well, how much were you skiing in those days from age fifteen to twenty or even earlier than that.

Yeah, probably ten to twenty days, maybe a year in ten, you know, something in that, depending on you know where we took drips ten to fifteen.

I mean it's certainly, you know, it was still a long drive, and even the trip to Hunter was a big, a bit of a schlub.

So certainly not something I was doing day in and day out.

But but it was every year, you know, it was something I cared about.

I was an avid.

I loved you know, going up to the resorts and watching Warren Miller, you know clips on TV that I was, you know, would get you jazzed up for the next year, going to like the local ski shops, uh and you know looking at new gear.

Did you go to Hickory and Tweed Hickory Tweet?

No, I think it was it was it was it paragrine or pedigree or I can't remember.

It's in white planes.

It was like a really good ski shop there.

But I also wound up just because I, you know, didn't have to grow up with a lot of resources, so a lot of my stuff was hand me downe from somebody else.

Was fun.

Okay, in school, what kind of kid were you like?

President of the class or a loaner?

Were you involved in sports?

What were you like?

I was definitely I was not president of the class, but wasn't a loner either.

I was more kind of in the middle.

And actually my personality type is right on the edge between introvert and extrovert, so that's the kind of would define me a little bit.

Was into sports, but also, you know, I was into I was, you know, much stronger in math and science than I was in English, and so wound up, you know, kind of leaning in that direction.

And then ultimately, you know, when I went to college, I went to the engineering school at the University of Pennsylvania because that's what I thought I wanted to be, only to find out that engineering is really hard, so I switched to something So I switched to something easier and went into business.

Okay, tell me about being on the knife edge, the line between introvert and extrovert, and how that manifest itself.

Yeah, I think it manifests itself in that I think I have the ability to be extrovert, and so I think that has certainly served me well was you know, I think the I'm not sure I fully when I took the CEO job in Veil at two thousand and six.

I don't think I fully understood how extroverted I would have to be.

But that has helped tremendously.

But the introvert side comes out in yeah that when I'm not at my job and I'm not you know kind of you know, doing that for work.

Yeah, I'm not running around to parties.

I'm happy to be home, you know, with a quiet evening, you know, with friends or family or whoever.

So definitely, and I can easily spend yeah, oodles of time on my own.

But I would say I get a lot of energy.

And it's one of the reasons I came back as CEO, you know, I left at the end of twenty twenty one and then come back came back you know, this past May and twenty twenty five.

And one of the things I've loved the most is the energy that I get from the you know, broader community here at fail Resorts and in the industry because it's yeah, so much passion and so energizing, So that that's how I can kind of be in both worlds.

So when you are home, you're not working in your alone, how do you spend your time?

Uh?

You know, I'm I I have a few things that I yeah, I'm super passionate about.

One is cycling.

You know, used to be both road and mountain.

Too many injuries, so now more mountain and gravel a lot less, no more technical mountain biking.

I'm kind of too old for it.

Uh.

And yoga has been like become a really critical part of my life.

Uh.

And yeah, staying staying in shape certainly, yeah, you know.

And then I'd say reading, walking, hiking, being outdoors, spending time with my kids.

Uh, all of that has es central traveling.

Uh you know, I you know, to me, like my ability to decompress is is really important.

I don't think I could be good at my job if I didn't have like enough time to actually unlind And yeah, that to me is also just doing what's comfortable in the moment.

And in this job, does the phone ring, does email come in at all hours or is it more regular business schedule?

You know, during the day, eight to six whatever, and occasionally on the weekend.

Yeah, I would say, one, the phone never rings, so I don't.

I rarely answer the phone if somebody did call.

So I do rely on either emails or text as a communication channel for me, And I would say most of it is, yeah, normal business hours, I don't.

I personally don't try and generate a lot of emails.

Yeah, you know, at night or over the weekends.

I think, you know, I think maybe I probably did do that, you know, I just when I started to CEO is thirty nine, I probably was in that mode for a little bit.

But you kind of quickly learn that if you want long term success, like you can't burn yourself out or everybody else out around you.

So I kind of, you know, ease back on that now.

That said, like, you know, I'm going to visit the resorts, I'm going to meet people within the industry, I'm going to make connections, I'm going to meet investors.

So there's a lot of hours.

I mean, you know when you add it all up in terms of what gets dedicated to the company, But I don't know.

For me, it's you know, I think working at Veil resorts allows you to align who you are with what you do.

And I'm a skier and so you know the fact that I get to work on that is uh, yeah, I don't view it as work and life balance.

Is just my life.

And how many kids do you have?

I have two kids, and what are they up to?

Yeah, older son who's twenty seven, who works in New York at a startup, and then a younger son who's twenty five and is, yeah, working in North Carolina doing ceramics and pots ceramics and farming.

So they're growing up with you.

You start to work at Bill Resorts.

You know, there's many issues here, whether you force your kids to ski, whether they come to themselves.

Were your kids into skiing?

My kids are into skiing right from the get go, so I did not have to force them whatsoever.

And you know, it's been Yeah, one of the most amazing experiences of my life has been watching their progression on skis and getting a chance to ski with them, and of course the faithful day coming down high line at Vale where they were waiting for me instead of the reverse, and you know, it was like a very humbling moment realizing I was getting older, and I was never going to catch them again.

That was the end of that.

And now that's pretty much anytime, like the three of us went ski.

We've been to Japan twice to ski and the last time we did some Helli skiing and sharabetsu and it.

You know, the three of us went.

We had an amazing day and they were absolutely like they were caretaking me.

There was nothing happening in the reverse on that front.

Well, Warren Miller said, there's one day that you and your kids ski at the same ability.

Exactly.

Okay, so you're at Penn Engineering isn't a good fit?

Your mother was an artist.

You could have gone into a lot of things.

Why did you go to Wharton in business?

You know, I felt like, I mean I said this at the time, and maybe it was a line to get myself into Wharton, But but it's turned out to be true, Which is I still love, you know, kind of math and science, and I'm definitely an analytic person.

But I like the social component of Maybe it goes back to the introvert extrovert thing.

I like the social component of business.

I like the fact that relationships mattered in business, and in a way the arc of my business career.

You know, I started in private equity.

I started investment banking, then in private equity, but really made this decision that I didn't want to do private equity forever because I liked the connection.

I like the team, I like being part of a group, and so that initially was what I liked about business versus engineering.

Okay, you graduate from Wharton, how do you get a job?

Is your first job Apollo?

No, my first job was I went out and looked for a variety of different jobs, mostly in banking, and I wound up with I think getting like three different offers.

One was like an options trading, which I didn't want to do.

The other was working at an investment bank called Drexel Burnham of Mike Milkan fame, and then the last was at a private equity firm called I think it was a CDC.

And you know, now it would seem obvious that you would go to the private equity firm, but at the time, like private equity wasn't really a big to do as much as it is today, and so it felt like going to an investment bank made the most sense.

You know, Drexel at that point was already under investigation, so there was a bit of a cloud over the company.

And I remember going out on my cell dinner after I got an offer from Drexel and the VP was telling I was telling the VP, I wasn't sure that I wanted to go to Drexel because they were under investigation, and the VP looked at me and said, you know, you seem like a smart kid, and you know what I'm telling you, don't worry about that.

You come to Drexel.

You're going to have an amazing experience, and even if things go wrong, you'll tell everybody for the rest of your life that you worked together.

And it turned out to be totally true.

And then, yeah, I wound up, you know after Drexel.

Really, wait, so you went to work for Drexel.

How long till it blew up?

Eighteen months?

And then what, you're just out of college.

You make this decision.

How do you rescue yourself from that?

It was I thought like my career was over, but I wound up Yeah, having an opportunity to Yeah, a lot I did.

I really worked hard when I was a Drexel and I had made a lot of good relationships and now all these people went to all different firms across Wall Street, and so yeah, I think it actually wound up being this huge blessing in disguise for me.

The people who ultimately started Apollo Leon black Mark Rowan, they wound up, you know, they were working on Apollo at the time, but they didn't have anything, and so they they wanted to know if I want to go with them, but they said they couldn't pay me.

I said, well, I needed money, and so I wound up taking a job at Smith Barney in their financial restructuring group for about six months, and then in August of nineteen ninety they called me again and said, oh, you know we are now, we have money and where we can pay you if you want to come over and join us.

And so I wound up making the move in August of nineteen ninety to join Apollo.

When at that point there I was the sixth person, you know, in the New York office.

We're working in offices that we rented from somebody else month to month.

I had a computer that we rented by the month.

It was.

It was a long way from the Apollo of today.

Okay, what was your relationship with the other five people such as they invited you, and what did you think was going to work about Apollo?

My relationship was really with this two guys, one of whom was Mark Rowan, who's currently the CEO of Apollo, and I'd worked for them while I was at Drexel as an analyst, and it was really they.

I mean, I had some contact with Leon and John Hannon, but really it was it was you know, these other guys that brought me along.

And what I thought for me as a young kid was that having money and investing money would allow me to have a much I'd get more experience, and it allowed me to do a lot more than being on the banking side, where you're selling to clients, where those clients generally don't want to hear from a twenty three year old.

But if we're investing from Apollo, then that's something that yeah, I thought I thought could could help boost my career, which which it did.

So what did you start out doing it?

Apollo?

We were looking for, you know, traditional buyouts.

We certainly were looking for like other private equity firms, but a lot of what we were doing was looking for or companies that were in financial distress, companies that were good companies but had taken on too much debt, and then we were willing to then go invest in those companies, or invest in the debt of those companies, and then try and restructure them so we could have an ownership state.

And that ultimately was how I got connected with Fail because Veil at that time, back in nineteen ninety one was owned by a company called Gillette Holdings, which was like a little personal conglomerate of George Gillett, and the company had fail the Mountain Packer Land, a meat packing company, and then three television stations, and so we wound up making a big investment there and ultimately taking control, and then we sold off the meat packer and the television stations and wound up with what was then called Veil Associates.

So whose idea was it?

An invest in bail?

And how did you end up on the board?

I think you know it was you know, I think I had done a lot of the initial work, but folks like Leon and Mark, I mean everybody.

At that point, we were small enough that everybody weighed in on any investment.

So I think there was a view that that all of us had that you know that Veil was a unique business.

And then at that point it was Veil in Beaver Creek that it was a unique business that was really not being valued appropriately by people, and so we thought we could invest in it.

So we closed ultimately took control of that company at the end of nineteen ninety two, and then in nineteen ninety six we were taking the company public as Veil Resorts.

And that's when I went on the board.

Okay, you went behind the years.

You have any imposter syndrome?

You know, yes, in a lot of moments, you know, especially because I was pretty young, and so you know, it was often that people treated me as as young, and I think, yeah, I had out of half imposter syndrome and half a little bit of a chip on my shoulder that you know, that I could carry my own even though I was young.

And so you know, I tried to kind of go back and forth between those two.

Things and what were the issues back then running Bill Resorts Bill Associates, Yeah, how we.

Could turn it into a more consistent business, right it was it was about like how do we skiing?

At that point, people who own ski resorts, for the most part, either use them to sell real estate at the base of the ski resort or they were just a complete hobby, you know, kind of trophy asset like a sports team.

And so we were trying to do we were trying to make the ski business itself the main business and not real estate, and we were trying to run it more professionally, not like, you know, like just just a toy.

Okay.

Whose idea was it to focus on the mountain as opposed to real estate date.

I think I think actually George Gillette, I think probably before we owned it, I think started some of that, But then we really felt like, you know, the real estate development business was just a very different business and and that we could you know that ultimately skiing, just like a lot of other parts of travel hotels, resorts, casinos, cruise lines, like there's there should be a place in that for for a ski resort.

And so, you know, I think we decided that that's where we were going to focus.

And one of the big ways that we wound up making a kind of decision or investment behind that was when we bought Keystone and Breckinridge.

Uh, you know, because once we did that, then obviously we were making an even bigger bat on the broader.

Skis inherently skiing is a seasonal business.

You have all this money, Why invest in such a challenged business that has a imited time span and it's depending on mother nature?

Yeah, well, I think that is that's long, you know, has long been the challenge within the industry is why do that?

I think I think the seasonal component of the business is unique, but it's also not.

We're not the only business that is seasonal.

So lots of parts of travel, you know, are seasonal as well.

Obviously, you know, there's amazing you know travel, you know, businesses and in warm weather locations that in the you know are great in our winter, but in this our summer, you know, don't make any sense.

I think one of the benefits, at least of ski resorts is that they're pretty amazing places to travel in both the winter and the summer, even though you don't ski in the summer.

So I think that gave us some confidence that there was some year round support and you could, even if we weren't going to make the money in the summer, there were jobs for people, so you could have more consistent employment.

Things like that.

I think all the weather, Yeah, that was that that was a challenge, and I think we initially felt like the way to try and diversify was maybe buying more resorts, being in other businesses.

So we initially spent a bunch of time investing in lodging, investing in retail, but no until we really put out the Epic Pass, you know, which is a little ways after that.

Yeah, I think the business still traded at a pretty reduced multiple because of them.

We're in this picture.

Do you meet your wife?

I met my wife in let's see in nineteen ninety two, and actually she was with me when we made the first investment and when we closed our investment in Veil back in nineteen ninety two.

So, you know, my wife unfortunately passed away earlier this year.

Oh God, trying to hear that.

That's okay, But yeah, she's very much always with me because she you know, has Yeah, it has been on this bail ride with me from the very beginning.

Was ill.

Yeah, yeah, she was.

Unfortunately, So how do you cope with that?

Yeah, it's hard.

It's not a simple thing, that's for sure.

But you know, I'm a I'm a big believer in yeah that, you know, I don't know focusing on your own emotions, focusing on your own mental well being.

I mean this was all before I went through the last you know, a couple of years with her.

It's critical so and that I think that plus yeah, amazing, you know, family with both of my kids and the relationship that I have with both of them.

Lots of other family, lots of friends, colleagues, Yeah, like anyone.

That's how you get through, you know, the tough times.

Yeah, but you go home there's no one there.

That's true.

That's not easy, but you know, you learn that life.

There's a lot of things that happened in your life that you are amazed by and you feel like are good fortune.

And there are things that happened that are tougher.

And yeah, I think for me, at least I try and you know, understand that that's going to be part of the journey, you know, one way or the other.

But not easy, that's for sure.

Not easy.

Did that have any factor in you coming back to the CEO job.

Not really, I think, uh, you know, I think at the end of the day, the you know, the board made a decision that they thought it was time to make a change, and once they did that, it was really about for me.

Obviously I was going to be supporting the company no matter what, but did I want to raise my hand to do this on a more extended basis and more permanent basis.

And for me it was you know, yeah, less about my wife and what happened there and much more about my passion for the company and the people who work here.

Kind of understanding that maybe the better part of my entire working life has been associated with skiing in one you know, shape or another, And yeah, that I wanted to see, you know, through this next phase of the sport.

Okay, what are all the revenue streams of bill resorts?

To this point, you say you're focusing on the mountain, which of course is lift tickets, ski school, food.

But you hang out and Veil long enough and they say, well, Veil owns these retail shops.

So what are all the revenue streams?

Yeah, so I think on the mountain it's obviously lift tickets and you know season passes are you know, lift access in total right or critical plus?

Yeah, then you've got ski school and food you know, up on the mountain.

Then we have rentals, which is a big business and a lot that we think we can change there.

Uh, and then in the base we also have I call it like more specialty technical retail stores.

That's part of our business.

We're we're not really in broader you know, the further way you get from technical you know, ski gear and stuff like that.

It's not really where we play in our retail business.

We do have a collection of hotels, We do have a collection of condos that we manage, so that makes up our hospitality business.

But but we are really a ski company and we you know, have circled back to that over the years, we've thought about the company has tried different ways to expand, We've thought about are there different ways for us to expand, And in all of those scenarios, we really come back to know at our core, the thing we do better than anyone else in the world is skiing and stillboarding.

So what percentage of revenue is driven from the hill, lift tickets, food and ski school rentals, not retail, not accommodations.

Yeah, I don't have it off the top of my head, but but yeah, the vast majority of our revenue does come from the mountain.

So I mean it is you know, i'd say off mountain off mountain retail and lodging is a much smaller percentage, and I think even more even smaller when you think about the profitability of those businesses versus the profitability of the mountain.

Okay, where are the growth opportunities in the ski industry?

Yeah, I think, you know, for us, I think it's on a couple of fronts.

I believe actually that there we're going to see a sea change in the sport over the next five to ten years from what we've seen over the last ten to fifteen.

So I think what's defined the sport over the last you know, ten to twenty years has been passes, right, and obviously US coming up with the Epic Pass, and then Icon and Mountain Collective and the Indie Pass here, and then you've got other passes in Europe and elsewhere.

That has been the defining feature.

We've also seen a lot of investment go into the resorts, but most of that has gone into lists and including for us, we've spent a huge amount of money on loot.

I think when you look to the future, it's going to be different.

First, I think we've probably reached a little bit of a maturity level on passes the last two years, we've seen actual declines in past visitation when you look at you know, the industry across America.

But we are we talking about past sales or the number of days people use the pass.

The number I'm talking on this one of the number of days people visit on a path.

So we've seen that actually decline versus increases actually in visitation from lifting.

It's that's the first time we've seen that in years too.

You've seen obviously our you know, we had explosive past growth over fifteen years, but even in the last four, right, our past sales growth has been up fifty percent, But over the last two years you've seen it decline, you know, two percent to three percent.

With Icon, you're seeing their pass to you know, kind of stabilize this year as well.

They're not growing what they were either, and so I think you're going to start to see a shift towards lift tickets being actually the next focus area for us and everyone else, which is how do you sell to the remaining people?

Seventy five percent of our visits come out of pass but that still leaves a big chunk of the market out there.

How do we now go after that?

Market, how do we elevate the resort brands one by one rather than just the Epic brand.

That's one piece which we think, actually and I think COVID actually showed that there are a lot of people who know how to ski.

That's not really the huge issue.

The issue is how do we get them to the mountain in more years?

How do we get them in the years they come to ski more days, how do we kind of continue to build that engagement.

So that's something we're very focused on.

And then how do we get the skiers who we have to bring their friends and families, which is one of the reasons why this year we introduced the Epic Friends Ticket, which gives fifty percent off to any passholder if they bring somebody to the mountain on their lifting it.

So that's something that's really critical for us.

The other piece is we think there's an opportunity to completely change how people use gear, own gear, rent gear when they're going up on the mountain.

I think that is a part of everyone needs to have gear before you can go up in the mountain, right, that is a prerequisite.

But you look at that market and the way that business is set up and basically you have a whole bunch of people who own gear who don't use it that often.

Even people who ski ten days a year and own gear think they need to own gear.

Well, that gear is just sitting in their closet for the other fifty one weeks of the year.

And obviously then you know, yes, there are a painful of people that ski eighty days one hundred days a year.

Sure, owning gear makes sense.

Then you've got all these people who are renting gear and their gear rental process is just not improved that much of the last fifty years.

They're not necessarily getting the best gear.

It's not easy for them.

You know, they don't know what ski or booth they are going to get.

And in our minds like that's right for a complete overhaul and something we're going to be focused on quite a bit over the next five years, that there's really no reason for most people to own gear and everyone should be able to say, hey, I just want to know that the ski I want and the food I want is going to be ready for me at the mountain whenever I show up, and we feel like, yeah, over the long haul, that's something we can deliver on.

Ski school is another one where we see real growth by digitizing the experience.

Another business that has not changed, you know, again in twenty thirty years.

Obviously the course ski lesson is not going to change.

But we can track people's progress, right the instructor can track their progress and provide that either to the guests or to their parents.

We can provide photos and video, we can have video analysis.

You know, all the things that you're seeing that exist out there, but none of that has been brought into the ski industry that you know, we think we can do.

And the last piece i'd say is even on the food side, I think I think we lost our a little bit on food during COVID.

Obviously we couldn't do what we wanted to do during COVID, which is fine, but I don't think we fully brought back what food service can be to the to our resorts.

And that's something we're going to be focused on.

And you see what's going on on food in all kinds of entertainment venues, and I think the ski industry has an opportunity to kind of follow that trend.

Okay, breaking it down, you talk about all these people who know how to skate, what's the number one friction point that's preventing them from being on the hill.

Yeah, what we see is that for the person who knows how to ski, it's the ease of the vacation.

So I think people have a sense that it's still a difficult vacation and gear is a big component of that difficulty.

So you know, if you own gear, then you've got to schlep your gear to the resort.

If you don't own gear, then you've got to worry about renting gear, and you don't know what you're going to get.

You don't know that you're to get the boot you want, or even if you own boots, you don't know what ski exactly to get what condition it's going to be, And there's you're waiting online or you're you know all, there's all these little pain points around gear that I think are a real challenge.

Two.

For sure, there's a I think a view of Yeah, people want to feel comfortable when they're up on the mountain.

I do think like there's been huge advances in both apparel technical apparel, which you know certainly I know when you started skiing, when I started skiing, went completely different.

Uh, And then on the booth.

What huge change has happened in boots that I think within the industry people kind of understand, but outside the industry, I don't think people will realize, which is the Boa buckle on boots.

So Boa is a technology that was you know developed, I know it because it's you know, it's used extensively on cycling shoes where it's essentially a cable that runs through the shoe and then you screw down the cable and then you when it's time to release it, you kind of push a button.

It just releases and you can step out of it.

But it really creates a kind of custom fit to the shoe.

Well that was introduced into boots I think it was two years ago and has now created this sea change.

So three years ago, we're the you know, one of the biggest specialty ski retailer in the world.

You know, three years ago we sold no boots with the Boa buckle.

Today, fifty percent of the boots we sell have a Boa buckle because people really perceive it to be so much more comfortable and customized.

That is going to be a big change, and especially as we were the first ones to introduce this into our rental program.

So once we do that, it really has an opportunity I think to make people realize that between the gear, between the apparel, between how we can get the gear to you, Yeah, that we've eliminated a lot of those pain points.

Even the digitizing of ski school.

We think right now, when you drop your kid off at ski school, you wait in a line, you can't find you an instructor.

So we're coming up with ways again using the same technology other people are doing to make that much much quicker.

So as a parent, you know, yeah that when you're bringing your two or three kids to the mountain, all these pain points can go away.

Okay, it's been well documented that baby boomers, who grew up before the business was mature, when it was growing, are reaching their sunset years.

How do we get new skiers into the industry.

Yeah, I think one of the great things is that that's happened, you know, in many respects, because we are seeing obviously we couldn't have had record years the last couple of years without that, and we are seeing you know, kind of what the people call the echo boom, right the kids of the baby boomers.

And what we're seeing is is that we you know, the think we owe a lot to two trends.

We talked about the season past tun which I think has helped, you know, keep engagement.

But the much bigger trend was really Jake Burton, right, and Jake Jake Burton inventing the snowboard when he did, and of course everyone hated it, you know, all the industry you know, kind of existing folks, and it was banned across so many resorts.

But of course, you know, rather than it being like a problem for the ski industry, and saved this games and introduced not just snowboarding, but then action sports and the X Games and the Do Tour and you know, Red Bull and whatever.

Right, all of that during the winter, that kind of you know, action sports dynamic happens on ski resorts, and I think that created this connection.

Plus the athletes like Sean White and everybody's come after him on that side of the sport.

Plus including all those action sports in the Olympics, which we'll you know, see this year.

Those things really provided energy.

So all of a sudden, I think as you were the kid of a baby boomer, you had, you know, it was cool to go on the mountain again, and the terrain parks.

I think, I'm sure you'll remember this pub.

Like used to be that if like kids tried to make a feature, you know, create a job, or create you know, a rail or use a log to you know, do tricks on the ski resorts would come by and mow them all down, and you know, because they thought it was a hazard.

And now obviously the ski resorts are creating these things, and so those kids have a sense that they are placed on the mountain, that they can go that no parent is going to go through right there, and that I think has that separation and that identity piece has helped a lot.

So I actually think we're in a really good spot there.

I think where we're not at a good spot as a sport is that the industry is, yeah, just predominantly white, like you know, and and so we have not made inroads in yeah, minority communities here, especially the African American and the Latino community, and that I think, you know, even yes, you know, people bring up, oh there's income, Yeah, there's a piece of that, but if you're just for income, the sport is still wildly underrepresented there.

But that's where all the growth is coming.

Population growth and so I do think the sport ultimately has to find ways to to be more welcoming and to bring in a broad set of communities.

I mean that's going to be critical as you think about the next ten to twenty years.

Okay, I was growing up in the sixties and seventies.

I said skiing was cool.

It was a middle class sport.

Needless to say, there wasn't the income an equality of today.

If you say you're a skier today, unless the person you're speaking with is also a skier, they're immediately going to speak of the cost.

They say, oh, you're rich, You're going skiing, You're rich, when really skiing has never been less expensive, primarily because of these passes.

How can this narrative be changed?

How can people see that it's not so expensive, which will then lower the hurdle to them participate in.

Yeah, well, I think it's like i'd say, it's two pieces, and I agree with you, Bob about that.

I think, you know, look, the good news is we've seen a lot of increase in demand for ski resorts, especially amongst high and travelers, and there are no new ski resorts being created, So it does create a you know, kind of unique supply demand dynamic that has pushed pricing up.

I think it's what you say is right, and I think it's on us to continue to go out there promoting the fact that, you know, if you buy a pass, you're skiing at prices, whether it's a one day pass or full season pass, you're skiing on prices that, yeah, are one of the best values in any part of travel, for sure, But there are other parts, like certainly taking the lesson is expensive, and you know, certainly buying food on the mountain is expensive, and we could talk about each one, but there are aspects, and you have to buy gears.

So when you compare going you know, on a ski vacation to some of their options, it's a little tougher.

Now that said, really important to remember, like as I brought up, like I started skiing at Hunter Mountain.

I did not start skiing at Veil.

Most people don't start their ski you know, journey at Veil or Park City.

And actually it's still pretty reasonable right to go to most of these small resorts either for both for lift tickets, lift tickets and rental packages, lift tickets, rental and food packages.

So it's at all these smaller resorts and local resorts that you know, we have to make sure that the that yeah, being able to come into the sport remains available.

And you know, our mantra is, we want to make skiing.

You know, we came up with the Epic for Everyone a while back because we want to make this yeah, really open and inclusive opportunity for everybody.

Now that said, it's expensive, like to run a ski resort, and it's expensive to you know, run a mountain restaurant that is so costly to build at twelve thousand feet and that you only run one meal a day for four months.

You know, like it's hard to make money in the restaurant business doing that.

So there are things that are not going to be cheap.

But but you know, look, you can show up on the mountain buying a discounted lift ticket or buying a path, put a sandwich in your pocket, and you're skiing next to a billion narrative fraction of the cost.

But why are lessons at Veil the major resorts not the feeder resorts.

Why are they so expensive?

I grew up when if you took a group lesson, it was more about whether you wanted to do it or not.

Take instruction.

Private lessons were always more expensive.

But if you're a kid going to ski school, I'm talking about a young kid, four or six whatever, and you have no equipment, it's basically five hundred dollars a day, which is a pretty significant cost.

For a group lesson at veil As five hundred dollars a day.

That sounds a little bit, but whatever, we're a four.

To six year old in our condo and it's basically four hundred and fifty foot I didn't believe it myself, but once you look at the statistics, you know they get equipment whatever.

It literally is that expensive.

Oh yeah, with rentals, yeah it could be, and with skiing it could be.

I guess what i'd say is it is there's a part of this that is the supplied demand piece.

So we actually, i'd say there's some pretty compelling opportunities to get when you combine lift access and lessons together, and you can get rentals as part of all of that.

And I think, you know, we'd have to look at the time off year you're going, but I know that there are some pretty compelling opportunities at most of our resorts.

But there is a piece that yeah, like we have a there is a certain limit on capacity in terms of how many kids we can actually bring in, and so there's the yeah, there's a cost piece to it.

And it's also you know, as we I like to remind people, despite the fact that you know, we've done a lot with passes to make the sport more stable, the truth is is that, yeah, our business still goes up and down based on the weather, which is a little trickier.

But if you look at every part of the travel business, and I'm sure you know, and you're traveling at peak times, it's expensive.

But that is just the reality of how how you know, I think life has gone during that.

But and by the way, even if you went to Keystone, it would be a hell of a lot less expensive than going to Veil.

I mean a Veil and Beaver Creek.

You're at, you know, two of the best resorts on the planet, and everything is going to be a little bit more.

Those of us who've been around, no, certainly at Deer Valley and Sun Valley and Snowbasin who have the same owner of the holding family, the food is spectacular.

How come that could never be replicated A.

Veil well, I would I would tend to say that there are places within Veil that I think the food is really amazing.

You know, certainly if you're going to two out obviously if you're going to be sitting down at the time.

Figuring to wild Wood, I think no doubt that Eagle's Nest and Midvale, I think there are opportunities for us to you know, definitely improve there.

But over to Beaver Creek, I think you'd see very similar food, absolutely as good food as Sun Valley or Snowbasin or Deer Valley.

I think those resorts it's important to remember right Vale Park City, Whistler, Breckinridge, these resorts are much much larger.

They do many many more people, and one of the prioritiestr USS is to make sure that we're moving as many people as we count through the restaurants, and the people have a way to sit, and it is a little bit harder to get the high touch service.

But if you go to a North Star, if you go to a Beaver Creek, yeah you're gonna get that same experience that you get at some of these other resorts.

But yeah, if you want to if you want more big Mountain scheme, right, which is a little different, and you want that kind of larger experience, then no, you're gonna get.

But I would put yeah, the overall experience a bail up against any resort in the world when you include everything the terrain, the food, the lyft network, the quality of the lift, the quality of the snow.

That to us is like you have to look at it in total.

Okay, you talk about lifts.

You referenced for a long time Veil was announcing after the ski Seeson began new lifts here and there.

That has tapered off.

Is that a result of the lowering of the stock price.

What will we be thinking, you know, both in terms of expansion and replacement going forward.

Yeah, no, not at all.

We have not.

We have not gotten ease back on that at all.

I think in twenty one twenty two, we announced what we called the Epic Lift Upgrade, where we literally I think upgrade.

I think it was I have to remember the exact numbers, like twenty lefs across the network.

We spent like three hundred and fifty million dollars per year or something.

A huge investment.

I mean, I would say, I think when you look at fail even at fail right.

Over the last four to five years, you've seen a lot of new lifts go in so much that when you think about Vail As Mountain, there are very few lifts that are left to upgrade, right, And you think about the new lift that went into the back Balls you know now called seventeen.

You think about the upgraded chair and Game Creek, you think about obviously the upgraded Northwoods upgraded Chair four.

Obviously going back further, the Gondol upgraded seventeen.

So now the question is like where on Veil.

You know, there's there's almost no fixed grip lifts anymore.

Everything's high speed.

We've upgraded a lot of the highest traffic lifts from four to six person.

So now the question is, well, where do you focus on the experience and where can you make a difference.

You know that to us is it's we're not backing off at all.

And obviously, you know you look at the number of lists we put in across our what we'll call our big destination resorts, Keystone, Breckenridge, Beaver Creek, Vale, Park City, and Whistler.

Yeah, I mean that those you could put those mountains up against any mountain in the world in terms of the quality of their lift network and the investment that's been put in, and there are unrival But but yeah, like at some point it's what I said earlier, Like I think that where we have to invest as a company is not necessarily just in lifts.

We have to use technology in a completely different way.

I think skiing is a sport that it lends itself to using technology again to remove the pain points, you know, making sure, making it easy to do all the things that you're doing on the mountain, to buy your ticket, buy your path, to buy ski school, to reserve something, to see what food is available, to rent skis, all of these things are things that you know.

You should never be waiting on a line.

You should never be waiting on a line for lift tickets.

You should be able to navigate the entire mountain understanding all of you know, where there's lift lines or not.

That technology piece, I think we've made great strides in this beginning those works and efforts, but we're nowhere near like best in class, and that to me is as important as that either.

But the lift piece, I think it veiled.

Maybe you have an idea of a lifted veilue you want to replace, But.

No, when I come to Veil, I'm listen what people don't realize about Veil other than a couple of beginner lists.

Every single lift is a high speed lift and has been for a while now.

Some other resorts are starting to catch up.

But as I say, when you talk about the lift network at Veil, it's beyond belief, which brings me to another issue, which is perception.

Okay, they show pictures go viral online of the lines at the gondola on a powder day.

Little do people know people are lining up at six thirty in the morning, the lift isn't even open.

Then there are pictures in the back bowls chair five before chair seventeen was installed on a powder day people go to ski sun up sundown bowls and it created a line.

Not only is there a new lift for someone like me, that's the last place I'm going to go on a powder day because I know more people are going to go there.

So this perception a Veil as being an overcrowded, not consumer oriented company.

The whipping boy.

Is it something that you shrug your shoulders and say there's nothing I can do about it, or can you turn it around?

I mean, just at Veil, the chair five at second iteration was a triple for decades.

You wanted to upgrade it too high speed.

All the locals went berserk.

Oh the ski of the powder is going to be skied out.

Whatever turn it into high speed.

No one ever said another word.

So the locals don't like change.

Is this something that you just have to shrug your shoulders or is there any way to turn this around?

I think yeah.

So obviously I've been around the industry and Veil resorts a long time, and so for me one, what you're saying about Veil and about crowding is exactly right, which is I think I tell people all the time that we're not We're not trying to avoid, right, some crowds.

Sometimes that's the reality of having a popular place that people want to go to and what it's like on a peak moment.

You know, you know, I don't know, I've traveled a lot.

I know you do tubea like anywhere I go between christmin years, Christmas and years is crowded, and so you know, or by the way you go to a try and get into like a playoff game in any sport, it's crowded.

Go to the super Bowl, it's crowded.

Try and get across Manhattan at rush hour, it's crowded.

Like I think, in the end, our job is to constantly be making improvements and ensure that while it may make for good social media content for a moment, in the end of the day, the guests who were there that day, they understand that the totality of the experiences such that they like it now.

By the way, of course, like there are people who say our resorts are too expensive and too crowded, Well, that doesn't make any sense.

There are people who say that our resorts are so crowded we've ruined the sport and no one goes anymore.

That doesn't make any sense either.

Obviously, if we're too crowded, it's because people are coming.

Ninety seven percent of our lift lines are less than ten minutes.

As that I am sure you remember skiing back in the day.

Yes, you waited way longer on a lift line than you ever do today because the lists were so slow.

In terms of the perception thing, I think there's a component of our company that by our very existence, you know, brings on a lot of this negativity and that part of it I do shrug my shoulders down, and I don't think that there's really much I can do about the fact that people take pleasure in showing those photos or trying to make fun of Veil at different times.

But there's also things that we do that you know, I think don't go well and where we own it and we have responsibility, and I think our company can do a much better job of avoiding those moments when those moments happen, rectifying them quickly, and most importantly, communicating better with people.

And I think one of the things when I look back, you know, especially of this last year, is that, you know, I think our company has to do a better job of both owning the issues through and through, you know, and not making any excuses or bones about it, but then also standing up for ourselves about all the great things that we do and stand for and represent the amazing people who work here and on that I'm not going to be I will not take a defensive stance at all.

I'm going to lean into that.

And that's the message that I've been sending as I've been going around our resorts and our communities, is that you know, we like, you know, at the end of the day, I have a lot of respect for you know, four Seasons, and you know and Marriott and Riz Carlton and Mandarin Oriental sixth Sense and all the rest of six Senses, all the rest of them.

They do an amazing job with Geest Service.

But of course they're talking about two or three hundred rooms at most.

They're running an experience that's indoors on the ground, you know, climate controlled environment, like we are trying to run an experience for in some cases twenty to thirty thousand sometimes at Whistler people at ten to twelve thousand feet in a storm.

Yeah, we are not going to hit the mark every day all the time.

The thing we have to do better, though, is we've got to own when we don't hit the mark, rectify it and then yeah, you know, like keep leaning forward.

So how come al Tarra You never hear anything negative about al Terra and the Icon past, never, And it's even more extensive.

I think they First of all, I think there was a lot of negativity about Icon and crowding in the first year or two that they that they came out, and a lot of chatter about that and a lot of chatter about how ski passes were rooting the industry, both epic and icon but you know, I think, obviously one, we're PubL company and so we are much more transparent.

Everything that happens with us is out there for everybody to see, and we report regularly.

And we are the leader.

I mean, you know, like that's just the way it goes.

We are the big fish in this pond.

We are the leader.

We're both the leader in terms of innovation.

We're the leader in terms of how we set prices and products around the industry.

And I understand that that's gonna We're going to take arrows with that.

I'm okay with that, but yeah, but it doesn't you know, just because I can shrug my shoulders a little bit at that doesn't mean that we don't have a responsibility to constantly improve and do better.

What did you learn from Park City?

Granted you were not the CEO at the time, What did you learn from Park City ski patrols strike during the Christmas holiday which limited the amount of open terrain on the mountain.

Yeah, I think it was, yeah, very difficult experiences for guests, and therefore, right are really something that we never want to see happen again.

I'd say, you know, lessons for us are one.

You know, we've you know, we've had a number of unions before Canyons.

You know that Ski Patrol really started from when we bought the Canyons, and they had a Ski Patrol union before we bought them.

But we've negotiated many contracts right with them with other unions that we either inherited or came you know, or showed up recently, including three different union contracts after the parts of the struct So I think we have a long history of being able to figure out a way to resolve these things before they ever get to them.

So that's one piece.

We certainly a lesson that we need to make sure we've exhausted every possibility before we get to a strike.

I think another piece though, is, yeah, we need to be more prepared in a strike, which is, you know, I think there are a lot of lessons we took for things that we could do differently if there was a strike again.

And we hope there's never a stroke, but if there was, because of course, like we are going to operate through a strike, and I think there's a lot of things that I feel much more confident about that we would be able to do today that we couldn't do that or didn't do that.

The last thing is, I think, you know, one of the things that was a challenge for us during that strike was also our own employees had a hard time providing the experience that they wanted to provide during the strike because they were under attack right from the union, from other people in the community.

And I think, you know, certainly, in a moment like that again, I personally would you know, be on the ground and the whole company would put their full support behind anyone and everyone who's trying to keep the resort operating in ways that I don't think we did the fullest, you know, last go round.

So I think there's some some quick learnings, But of course the biggest one is we don't want to We want our employees on the mountain, and we want our patrol or any other group on the mountain to be to be there providing the best work at the cap.

What about the insanity of the lift situation in Park City and all the negative you ordered, We're going to install a lift, they stopped at the latest legal cases, you can't do it.

You as a company pivoted brilliantly and said, well, we'll move that lift to Whistler.

But if this is anybody looking at this situation, why would you not want another lift?

First of all, park City is a megalopolis.

If you talk about parking, most people don't park anyway.

And then you have the guy with the town lift now saying he wants to buy I mean, he gets all this press even though it's a non starter.

Is this something that is unsolvable?

You know, it bleeds into the other issue of you mentioned earlier.

They're not building any more new ski areas.

There are economics involved, but the conservationists are insane.

They stop mineral King of Disney in the sixties, Grand tar our Gee can't even Expand what can you do when there's this huge disconnect between a small segment of the public that doesn't even seem rational.

Yeah, I agree, I think it's I would say it's that was a difficult dynamic and one that you know, we certainly feel that the community made the wrong decision about that, and we announced shortly after I came back that we're going to absolutely get in front of the community again, and the council to put those back in.

There'll be you know, new lefts that we're going to buy.

But because we do want to see those lists go in.

We also have a base, you know, a development at the base area of that mountain that we think is critical, especially now with the Olympics coming.

We think we need to that's an eyesore, you know, the area at the bottom, and we should be upgrading it.

And honestly, for our company, we don't really make money doing any real estate development.

We really bring in other people to do it.

We're just trying to get done, don't you know.

We're happy to add parking, We're happy to add whatever you know to make things better.

It works for us too, but it just has to be something that's doable.

Somebody has to financially be able to make sense of it.

And so I think I think there's maybe some shifting going on within the community and understanding that even if they need to be really sensitive to growth, that yeah, like turning down improvements and upgrades is not something that long term is going to be good for them, you know.

I think, yeah, they're in every single community there there are contingents of people that are just anti growth no matter what and I think, you know, we have a pretty good track record, by the way, including within Park City, of doing upgrades, putting in improvements, and I think it's you know, sometimes we get their setbacks to that, and I think that was certainly a moment of a setback with the Park City left.

But we just have to stay at it, you know, I mean, and it is on us to figure out a way through the communities to ensure that we can find some way to align with them to keep making upgrades.

And I think the good news is again I think I could really say with every single one of our major resorts, Yeah, we've got a pretty good long term track record of getting things done, even if there are momentary settlements.

Okay, al Terra started.

It is not a completely comparable company in that a lot of the skieries are not actually owned by Alterra, but they made a big point that they were going to leave management of the ski areas local and maintain their character.

Now, on some level, I'm rolling my eyes by virtue of the fact a lot of these skieries still have old slow lifts, etc.

You came in, you moved the operation to the front range from the Vale Valley and concentrated management.

Now, just putting a little additional point in this.

I know people in Vale who own retail businesses, restaurants, and they're not happy with the fact that there is no individual advertising unveil to their perception that most of the advertising is for the overall company, the Epic Pass.

So a couple of things here to what degree is local management important?

And secondly you talked about this change, is there going to be more emphasis and what might that look like on the individual resort as opposed to the overall paths?

Yeah, so both one, I would say we have local management and everything.

Of course at every single one of our resorts.

We have an incredible track record of promoting the local management of our resort from within, and we move people around between resorts so that the people who are running our resorts are from the ski industry, of the ski industry, grew up in the ski industry.

And yeah, we have huge pride in that.

It is true that I absolutely believe that if we want to run a successful company, that we have to have certain things that we do together as a team.

Just like every other company that does leisure or whatever, they don't have every single resort or property running off on their own.

But that said, yes, you know, people have told me that we've homogenized the resorts, and I think you and I both know that that's ridiculous and that if you go to Vail, it doesn't feel anything like what it's like in Keystone, or if you go to Heavenly or if you go to Beaver Creek or Recordage, and those are the five resorts we had back in two thousand and two, and then they're nothing like.

Right, no part of the experience is alike.

But I think that if you want, I mean, at the end of the day for us, you know, and this was true for the icon piece too, But think about it from our perspective, we moved right.

We went from ten or twenty percent of our business on a pass to seventy five percent of our business pass.

I think that has saved our company and providing stability.

It has saved the industry.

And to do that, we needed to get all of our resorts at least aligned on how we actually drive revenue.

But to the point I made earlier and you just mentioned, yes, we to make that kind of a sea change, fundamental move in the industry, we had to put all of our resources behind the epic brand, behind the past product.

We had to make Lift tick.

It's absolutely expensive because we wanted people to move from Lift tickets to the past.

All of those were essential pieces.

But now, no, I think we understand that we need to do a better job promoting each individual brand.

You will absolutely see that.

You will absolutely see that for Vail, we need to activate through events, social media, video content at every resort so that people understand the excitement of each one of those brands.

And I think absolutely I think we can be criticized for not having done enough of that, and I think you're going to start to see that change, you know.

Now that said, I think, you know, for a lot of these communities, I think one of the things they have to think about is is it that they want more people coming or not.

Like we get criticized on both sides of that with some people.

You know, like we wanted to put you know, affordable employee housing in a fail a lot of people didn't want that.

You know, We've got a project that we've you know, we want to put in a West Lionest and now we're finally making progress in that.

But for a while, there are a lot of people that didn't want to see that, So it's attention, you know, and then you get people saying, yeah, well you're not driving enough business.

So some of this, I would say, is we just have to realize as part for the course, like you're going to get some of this feedback, it's going to sometimes seem contradictory, and it's our job and my job to navigate through all of that.

One of the things I said when I came back was that it's my job to find ways to align all of our stakeholders right, our our shareholders, our employees, our community members, and our guests.

Like that's my job, Like how do I navigate through all of that and thread that needle?

And it is a you know, you're not always going to get it right, but I think we have to constantly be thinking about how we do that because I think that's how we have had long term success.

Just going back to one of your points about people saying the resources are the same, they couldn't be more different.

The only thing that's similar are the bones of the websites, which any corporation would say, hey, yeah, that's a way to do it.

Where are you know?

It is a public company.

Where are the growth opportunities for Veiled Resources?

Yeah, I think we can absolutely grow visits.

So I feel I think that we have not done and especially compared to where we've been the last couple of years, I think there's a real opportunity for us to grow visits.

That's not going to be ten and twenty percent growth, that's not the way the industry works.

But getting back to low single digit growth I think is definitely possible.

I think then getting price growth right above inflation also very doable.

And then really the big opportunities and the big swing points for us are going to be around you know, what we call kind of antilly revenue, but is you know, ski school, rentals, and food.

And I think we have big opportunities in all three, particularly ski school and rentals to really drive outsize growth.

And we haven't seen, you know, in the industry, we haven't seen on our company and haven't seen in the industry before.

And then finally, I do think there are opportunities for us to grow in Europe and for us to grow in in Asia.

Not something that's going to happen overnight, but this is a global industry and a lot of the change that we've seen that has been so successful in North America, I think is still is making its way around the world, but it's still kind of slow to get there.

Well, in terms of acquisition, even in Europe, there was a local community that bought a ski area, so wouldn't be purchased by one of the huge companies.

What are the opportunities and what are the strategies without revealing any special sauce, yeah, I think.

It's patient and the special sauce is patience.

You know.

I think people tend to look at what we did in North America in Australia and say, well, oh, it's so obvious that you could do all of that.

But you know, as you probably remember, certainly back in two thousand and five, in two thousand and four, yeah, nobody thought there was any opportunity to acquire resorts in North America, or even if you did, why would make any sense?

So yeah, I'm not you know, I know that it takes time.

I think in a way, right, I think you're going to have some resorts in Europe there that may make the same decision that the community and locks made, and I think that's fine.

But there's going to be other resorts and other owners, right that meg see that.

Hey wait a minute, as we think about the next five to ten years, maybe it makes sense to align, you know, more strongly with one of these bigger players.

And you know, so when I look out five or ten years, I'm quite confident we'll see some of those opportunities come through.

What would be the benefit to one of those large resource and there are many Rubia balveasir goes on to joining part of an overall company, Well.

I think you know a couple.

But one is, you know, the ski industry, and I think even more so in Europe, right really has struggles with weather.

Right, they are at lower elevation than we are, and so you know, I think as you think out over over time, I think there's some real benefit to that.

The other thing is a lot of these lift companies, and they are lift companies, as you know in Europe.

So most of these lift companies don't have city school, don't have food, don't have rentals, don't have retail, don't have logic.

So they those lift companies can be exposed, right, I mean, because those are pretty profitable areas of the business.

And so I think being part of a larger company, with the more consistent capital that we can put in, the more consistent employees that we can put in.

I think those are opportunities long term.

I also think from a marketing perspective, there's an opportunity for us to ultimately have a pass product that is that it's more of a European based pass product that can provide access to both Europe and North America and really be a compelling product for like Germany and the UK, which kind of do both.

You know, I think, yeah, there's not a lot of people in France that are going to have a common ski in the US.

That's true with Austria, that's doue with Italy, that's true with Switzerland.

But in the UK and Germany, I think we have real opportunities.

So you have past partners.

These are companies that you do not own, but people who own Epic passes can ski there.

Just use one example, tell your ride, full Epic pass owner get seven days to tell your ride.

How did the economics work on that?

How is the money split up?

Yeah?

I can't Those are confidential, so I can't really you know, go into that, but obviously, yeah, there's there's an economic arrangement that that we think benefits us in terms of you know, tell You Ride is a good example.

I think we see tell You Ride is a very unique brand, and the number of brands that are not owned by al Terra or US, yeah, they're not that many as you know, right that are that we really have could move the needle and have the unique power that a teal You Ride has.

It's not the only one, but uh.

And so they see a benefit I think in getting obviously revenue from us that they feel is more consistent and stable, and we think that, you know, that's that works out great for both of us.

Now, of course, it's true that a resort like Tell You Ride as a resort we would own and in our minds, like you know, we take we like to create networks where we would be comfortable owning any of the resorts in our network, which is maybe a little different than Alterra.

But the reason for that is, yeah, we don't.

We don't.

We want to make sure the experience of that resort is one that you know, we can get behind and it's consistent.

We also want to make sure that, yeah, this is something that is for the long term we don't really want to get into the game of adding and subtracting partners over time, which sometimes can happen right when you create a network.

So in our minds we do mean more owner operated as a as an MO, but for key resorts, like I tell you right now, we absolutely will We'll welcome them in as a partner.

Is that a pre use payment like if I ski until you ride, they'll pays them a certain amount or is it a different structure?

Yeah, they're all the agreements are confidential, so I can't get into the specifics of it, but but I can't say yeah, it's yeah.

But of course there's an economic you know, trade that we're making with them, where obviously they're economically benefiting from that and we you know, in some way right that we're paying them, and then obviously we feel we're benefiting by getting more people on the path.

Do you think that these partners do at the they'll own so many ski areas, is it worth it to give up some of the revenue to independent past partners?

Yeah?

I think for us, I can't speak for al tara an Icon, but for us, we feel like we are very selective with how we put on partners, and we're willing, you know, to walk away if we don't think that that partner really adds as much.

And the truth is, you know, in the end of the day, like, yeah, without any partners, we do feel like our network in North America is incredible and the resorts we own, which I think sometimes people lose sight of.

You know, people think that a Whistler and a Veil and a Breckenridge and a park City, you know, are similar to you know, a Jackson, you know, or even an Assmen and they're not.

I mean, they are.

It's not saying that there always are an amazing resource.

They are, but in terms of size, in terms of popularity, no, they're they're not.

They're not equivalent.

And so for us, yeah, we understand that we've got the resorts that you know, are really critical to the overall ski market, and so at that point we're really selective on just picking like who's going to add really value outside of that, and we do think Tell You Ride is one of those resources that does that for us.

Okay, the Icon Pass is more expensive than the Epic Pass.

In addition, after covid Epic lowered the price, it has since been raised, but we've also had inflation.

How do you calculate the price and is there a fear that there's not that much headroom?

You can't raise it too much without turning people off.

Yeah, I can't.

You know, in our minds, we keep an eye on what Icon is doing on their pricing, but we are pricing our passes based on what we think is right in our own system between lift tickets and passes.

And you know, in our minds we've done a lot of work on why we've come out with the pricing that we have.

We are actually going to do even more work on that, you know, as in the up coming years there's new tools available with AI machine learning that allow us to take a complexity of a lot of this and make sure that we've optimized everything.

And I think when you look at Icon in the end of the day, they do a lot of discounting, you know that we don't do like renewal discounts and you know, bount money discounts and things like that, where it's kind of like we have a little bit cleaner, more consistent approach right to how we price, and I think others within the industry sometimes have a little bit more.

Oh, here's the lead price, but then we have all these you know, sales on the side.

We don't tend to do that.

But yeah, for us, we see ourselves as the price leader, like and setting the market for both price and product.

And again we do keep an eye on what everybody else is doing, but a lot of what we do is based on the analysis that we're seeing in our own business.

What about the concept of the so called black pass.

They have had it at Snowbird, they had a park City before you owned it.

They have it a copper which, for an additional fee, you do not have to wait in line or in a much much shorter line.

What is Veil Resorts philosophy relative to.

That, Yeah, we don't.

That's not something that that we that we have been a fan of.

You know, in the end of the day, for us, we feel like, you know that cutting the line is really reserved for ski school, and in our minds that's because ski school is you know, they are providing lessons to people and so ultimately that's something that we think, uh, you know, that's a part of that experience that we give.

And if there are people who just want to use it as a line cutting option.

That's fine.

We we obviously understand that and support that as well.

Some people say, well, but you know, it's so expensive.

It could be you know, at Veil at peak time, a private lesson could be fifteen hundred dollars or whatever.

But if you get a group of four or five people together on a per day basis to you know, to skip all the lists, you know that they may think that's a reasonable option.

That is kind of our black path, and we feel like we'd rather in our minds that if we've opened up a black path, we absolutely withoud decountabalization from our ski school and I think it would put pressure on that and we maybe which is different than some of these other resorts, but we're trying to drive as much business into our ski school and with our instructors as we possibly can.

It's a good business for us, and we think that creates a healthy dynamic for the instructors.

Okay, Epic Gear, is this really a business?

You talked about the pain points and going forward the Epic Gear.

I walk past the Epic Gear area every day when I go to go skiing, and it's always two guys who look like stoners who have their elbows on the counter and there's almost no one there.

And at the end of the day, when people have to put their skis on the rack, there's almost no one there.

I know that there is a delivery component.

In addition, is this a good idea that the public is really going to accept?

You know, there are a lot of good ideas that the public doesn't go.

And to what degree has it it's already been in operation, to what degree is it a business already?

So what I would say is this, I think the core part of my epic gear.

I mean, we kind of we were testing a lot of things last year in terms of like all the different components of what an elevated experience on my epic year could look like.

But I would say that the core part it and I think you can see it in the name itself.

Mypic gear is about you being able to pick the gear that you want and either having that gear available all season long, right if that's what you want, or you can pick close in if you don't want to tell us what gear you want all season long, but you'll still be able to pick from our inventory of the best gear and the best boots.

The Boa Boots as we talked about earlier.

In our minds, that's that is a sea change concept.

We think it has huge opportunity and could be a very big business in the industry because ultimately, right now, the reason why people own gear most people is because they don't really want to own gear, but they own it because they want to make sure when they get to the mountain that they've got the boot and the ski that they want.

The reason why people when people rent gear, they don't own it obviously, but then most people are not happy necessarily with all the choices and options.

A lot of people feel like they're not getting the best gear, or if they rent, they're not getting the same thing the next time they go back.

Maybe they had a boot or they had a ski that they really like, but now you don't know that you're going to get the same thing next time.

So people are kind of starting new every time they go and rent.

In our mind, that is an antiquated approach to how people should use gear, and so I do see this as a big transformational event, but it's not easy to do.

You could just imagine all the logistics and the technology that's required to make something like that successful.

So we're going to You know, this is not something that's an overnight It's not like just creating a little app, you know, on your phone.

It's a lot that goes into it.

But ultimately, I think it could be a real game Jinger.

And to what degree do you feel responsibility for the health of the manufacturers?

Ski sales?

Companies that make skeys have gone way down.

A lot of them are conglomerates where they have other revenue streams.

If theyil is purchasing equipment, inherently it's a discount.

Volume players get a discount, and certainly there are special rental packages as someone is wanting something of lesser quality.

But if this my epic gear is successful, it's going to affect the overall sales of these companies.

Yeah, I think, you know, I'd say it's a shift, right, So exactly how this plays out, I don't know, and over what time period I do.

It does matter to me that these companies are healthy.

I would say that we also know that, you know, the retail business on skis and boots is also challenged, right beyond certainly the brick and mortar retail business is a challenging business.

We're obviously a big player in and that's a challenging business given online dynamics.

But of course, like for online, it's not the same experience, right, people don't get to touch and feel the product.

So I think my concern when I look out is like, if we're seeing struggling retail dynamics for hard goods, what will that mean in the long run if people can't touch and feel this product.

I think it could actually reduce the owner cycle of replacement no matter what.

And so in our minds like, actually, this could be an opportunity where people get to touch and feel without making this huge commitment the best gear that's out there, right, And I actually think it'll bring them closer and more passionate about the gear, which of course means that when we're going to buy the new gear and new options and you know, so it's yes, just like the right, it's like everything like the music, right, as you know, Well, it's not that the business goes away, it's just in my shift, and I think that's something we want to try and be on the front end.

So at this point in time, how often do you go skiing?

Well, I would say I don't know.

What would I say if I had to guess for this year, I'm going to say twenty to thirty days, you know, something in that in that range, i'd say my own skiing tracks kind of most most people, which is, you know, I was skiing forty to fifty days a year when my kids were five to you know, nineteen, and once my kids went off to college and now live on the East Coast.

Yeah, it's less, you know, and but yeah, I mean so by the way, that's a recreation, recreational days.

I spent a bunch of time at our resorts or getting on the hill to you know, do the work part of it's differently, but yeah, I'm you know, this is something yeah, I've loved since I was a kid.

Okay, so other than the twenty thirty days, how many days are you on the hill when it's essentially air quodes work?

Oh I don't know either, Yeah, on the hill.

And I could be on the hill, you know, in the non skiing season too, like and shoes or boots, but yeah, you know, I would probably be I'll probably be in ski resorts.

Yeah, forty days, you know, at least forty fifty days something like that.

So if you are deciding to go skiing.

Where do you go?

Well, as you know, Bob, I have I have a house in Veil, and you know, I love all of our resorts of course, like all my kids, but no, I have a special connection with Bail that goes goes back aways and obviously it's where you know, I spent teaching, you know, and learning to ski with my kids them learning to ski, and then meet skiing with them and our family up there for countless holidays with you know, my extended family or their friends.

So like that.

Yeah, it's a very very special place for me.

But yeah, we've I've also gone with my kids, you know, and my family and friends right to ski Whistler, which is an incredible experience in ski Peak six at Breckenridge, or off the Imperial Express or right Stone Creek, Shoots and Beaver Creek, yeah, or the out back of Keystone or nine to ninety at Park City.

Plus I'm going to ski other places like Snowbird and Deer Valley and Jackson and all kinds of different places in Europe, Japan.

So yeah, I think it's one of the great things.

And honestly, you know what I'm most passionate about and why I love the sport.

It's like a every day is different, the weather is different, the experience is different.

But yeah, I get to be outdoors doing something I love.

And yeah, having that be my job as well, that's kind of cool.

So what's your strategy at fail you're starting?

Where do you go?

Oh?

For me, it depends on the day, I'd say, right, it could be if it's a if it's a powder day, yeah, I'm going up the gondola, you know, and then uh yeah, over to Chair fourteen or down five and up seven and up nine and yeah, back to Blue Sky.

So I mean, if I can get you know, if I'm up, if I'm if I'm out there early enough, no, then I'm skiing like Forever and Wow and Rickey Thridge, you know.

But then I'll go over maybe ski Genghis, right, you know, So then I'm making my you know, all the way over.

So maybe I'm then skiing the slot and I'm skiing Genghis and then I'm going back to Blue Sky and going you know over to our earls and skiing CJ's and you know, and and it's kind of taking a couple of laps there then going back across and skiing lovers Leap and then down to Pete's maybe doing one run on resolution or two runs on resolution, you know, then lunch, then back and then yeah, then I'll kind of finish up my day skiing.

You know, it's still good.

Then I'll be back skiing.

Yeah, like all the other you know.

Now I'm skiing Opre Fou, I'm skiing you know, maybe WFO or you know.

Then I'm going into the all the outer locations or into Teacup.

Just to drill a little bit.

So if you're not out early, you will take the gondola to four and then take the road all the way to fourteen and then go to the back.

Yeah.

Probably, Well, I don't know, or I'm yes, I would do that, or I would take I might even go all the way over to depending on the day, go over to the bottom of six, take six up and then go from six the top of six to to ten, ten to fourteen, fourteen up, or I might go down to Yeah, take the take take the gondola up four up, down, you know, to the bottom, and then maybe take slot and then go up nine and then go into either Teacup or Genghis.

You know whatever, and then get from there.

Some of this also depends on like how good the snow is in all the gullies, so how many cat tracks are you taking to get back or can you actually ski through the gullies to get to Yeah, the base of the blue cut.

Well that's what you know.

People don't realize they talk about the lines.

I mean, if I have to start at the gondola, if there's a big line at three and four, I just take the road to ten.

And what people don't know.

You know, you can ski down half of the front side and take the road over to six.

Certainly once you get like ten, ten thirty, there's no line at six, and there's never been a line at ten.

I don't know if I want to give away all my secrets.

But by the same token, people are bitching about the lines.

I don't get it.

I agree, well, you and I have the great fortune of being able to do this and recreate in these amazing places, and yeah, it's awesome and I feel super lucky.

I do.

Well, I guess I just want to leave it.

People don't understand the allure of skiing.

You referenced it earlier.

Yes, you are outside b certainly if you're in the West.

Ten's not to be that cool.

With the technical improvements of the equipment or such that.

It's not like the old days, not like the old Duelfold days underwhere you know they have much better runderwear.

There's a thrill in skiing.

It's not like tennis.

You don't have to be good to enjoy it.

As long as you're at the limit of your ability.

You could be on the beginner slope and be thrilled.

And unlike water skiing or so many other sports, the hill is different.

The hill changes certainly if you go to another you know, people always ask why I'm such a ski fanatic, and usually it's matter have you ever done it?

If you do not, everyone's gonna love it, okay, But there's a certain magic even go on, you know, social media.

There's a woman you know who learned how to ski in her twenties who lives in breck skis one hundred days a year.

You just get the bug.

You know.

There's the issue of ski bums now that people come from Australia and South America.

But I'll leave my rap at that.

It's been a great pleasure talking you.

Let's hope for a good snow season.

Your ski areas are starting to open.

Oh one final question.

Do you own your equipment or do you use what's in Epic gear?

Both?

So, I own equipment, but as you can well imagine, like I own a son, so many pairs of everything that you know, I tend not to throw them away.

But I've also used my Epic gear, so I used both.

Well.

It was awesome, Bob.

I really appreciate you taking the time to have this conversation.

You and I have communicated going all the way back, and so yeah, an awesome, awesome opportunity for me to talk to you and all your listeners, and I hope to see you up on the hill of Vail.

Just one correction, because I feel guilty.

When the Epic Pass was launched it was still the high speed chair because the gondola was installed in twenty twelve, and I just want to go one step further.

You know, listen, I know a lot of Veil haters, et cetera.

But the infrastructure upgrades, you know what happened with north Woods and now even game creaking the gondola.

It's, as I say, my only complaint with Vail would be wow.

I wish there could be more.

You know, h territory open with the rules looks the aside of rules.

I know how difficult that is in any of them.

I'm gonna leave it there, Rob, thanks so much for taking this time with my audience.

Till next time.

This is Bob left six