SkiBum.This will be the first year you start to notice large drawback in parks and resources across most of the large resorts. Especially those with numerous areas under one umbrella.
Parks are maybe not dying, but stagnant, just like the ski industry as a whole. They are also expensive. Smaller, consolidated parks will be future. Halfpipes are all but gone already.
People spend money elsewhere with skiing. It is a rich man sport. Snow conditions, restaurants, hotels, lifts and general overall experience is what people want.
The tiny fraction of poor melinials and younger doing the park are doing nothing for the bottom line revenue.
I don't think so. A lot of the big changes already happened. Halfpipes disappeared 15 years ago most places. Barely any were still around 10 years ago. Sure a few have dropped since then, but for the most part, the places building them have a reason.
Some like whiteface that got rid of there's only like 7 years ago did it when the big events stopped. There just aren't as many big pipe comps on tv. Even though there was the decline in pipe riding across the board, you still had a shit ton of people that were from the era where everyone had a pipe, pipe comps galore. Now with those riders moving on it's kind of died out.
I guess we've seen a decline in action sports comps across the board. There are big comps like X, US Open, etc. but we don't have 100 comps on tv blasting punk music and watching people huck.
The same for jumps some places. Parks didn't really have rails. It was a shit ton of kind of sketchy table tops down a whole trail.
Snow takes money, and people like rails. Most places build few but well built jumps, and a ton of rails. Rails are dirt cheap to build, easy to move around and give the park a fresh look. Besides, half these kids just want to hit jumps anyway. That's why a lot of places won't build anything over a 40 and might only have a 2 jump line, with another smaller 2 or 3 jump line for the kids.
Idk. In my opinion they're still growing. The places slowing down are places that WERE big, and then have changed their mindsets about parks with new management or buyouts. Some places that had killer parks but are now "family resorts".
But there are still a ton of smaller resorts coming out of the stone age getting their parks going Some have realized their potential but a lot of them are barely tapping into it.
10 ish jibs and a small- medium 2 jump line can be built and maintained by one person. I'm not saying they're going to get a huge return, but parks aren't always that expensive. A lot of the places that really build the big stuff, multiple pipes, huge jumps, 100+ rails are going to keep building them because they get a good return by being the big dog.
Idk. Not sure how you can say things are stagnant. The riding has progressed a ton which allows for massively more creative/difficult features.
