let me break it down for you.
super expensive rails, what kinda rails? Even if I started a "professional rail building company" that just made high quality rails day in and day out I don't see a rail costing more then $1000-2000/each. I say $2000 because of a DFD with steps. Those can be large. Even if you purchase 60 rails @ 2k each you still only have $120k of your 5 million dollar figure.
Snow cat machines are not a one time use only machine, in other words, the business will depreciate the cost of the machine over its life span. They did not spend 3 million on a cat. To break the cost of a cat down I will look at the used price of a Pisten Bully (which is pretty damn popular) and I find they cost $96k used from 06. (
http://rockymountainsnowcats.com/current_stock.html)
Just going with the math that the unit probably cost 2.5x of the 96k cost brand new. I find the snowcat to cost AT MOST 250-300k per cat. Figure 2-3 of these at worse to run an entire park and you have ONLY 900k (at worse) tied up over the average life of a cat. If you give it a life span of 7 years then you are spending 128k a year on vehicle costs. Maybe another 10-20k yearly in gasoline if I want to pull a number out of my ass.
The labor for the park, yeah I know you punks don't make shit shoveling snow. If any of you made over $20hr running a park then I would be amazed. Lets say you make 20hr and you work with 2 other individuals making that as well. 60 hr x 8 x 5 x 4 x 6
20 dollars per individual, 3 individuals, 60 hours. 8 hours a day. 5 days in a work week. 4 weeks in a month. 6 months in a ski season ONLY $57,600 and thats paying you $20 hour for 3 full time park staff to work 5 days a week for 6 months.
Large scale event costs you need to be careful with. You can spend 20-30k to host an event out of pocket, but when you have sponsors your costs get minimized. Lets say four 30k events. Thats a lot of shrimp and wine for 30k........really think about it just what makes an event an event. It is a bunch of promotional marketing shit, some event scaffolding, crowd control barriers, and some event staff. Making $10/hr probably too. Anyways, 30k is a fuck ton of scaffolding but 120k for events in your winter......
900k + 120k + 57.6k + 120k
I can't even talk about how expensive a rake is to work in a park. Lets pretend they are super high quality and shit, what are they going to cost? $250 a rake? You are no where near 5 million. I don't price insurance policies daily, but even if you had another 2-5 million in liability insurance I don't think you will spend more then 200-300k on that (yearly reoccurring cost)
People don't take the time to actually sit and think how the fuck do you spend 5 million on something. (or any big figure attached to anything). The last thing I haven't thought of are the "professionals" who come in. Lets say you pay $15k for a terrain park consultant to come in and coach/design for a few weekends. Still not breaking the bank.....
I know you have snow cat operators and such but as you seen with my previous figure for park staff, 57k isn't shit. Another 57k still puts you just over a million (giving you 3 cat machines that will last longer then one season, along with rails that will last longer then one season).
It doesn't add up, and I wish someone would elaborate on what expenses I am missing. Because I think I have most of my bases covered. I haven't counted snowmaking/cost of water, but I would like to think a resort doesn't have to spend 3.5 million/yr for water. Your snow making equipment are fixed costs lasting several years as well, unless you spend 1-2 million a year on snow equipment for your park and spending several million a year on water then I think these numbers we are told is a lie.
