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TWSSF overcomes early Easter

Most cultural events sold out, some sports events still a work in progress
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Successful Reflections Early numbers from TWSSF organizers indicate a successful event, despite concerns about holiday scheduling. Photo by Brad Kasselman, coastphoto.com

With the Easter long weekend taking place three full weeks before the 2008 Telus World Ski and Snowboard Festival, event director Sue Eckersley said some people were doubtful that this year’s festival would be as popular as past editions. A look at the early numbers, however, shows the festival can stand on its own.

“Even the years we don’t fall on Easter, we’re typically the weekend afterwards and it gives us a bit of a boost,” she said. “It was interesting this year that we were three weeks out from Easter, and people were concerned that the festival was going to take a real hit in terms of accommodation numbers. I’m really excited to report that that didn’t happen.”

According to Eckerlsley, early numbers are slightly behind last year, when Whistler also hosted the Mountain Travel Symposium, but are on par with the festival in 2006, which was a week after Easter.

“If you take away the Mountain Travel Symposium, we’re on par with last year as well,” Eckersley added. “I think that speaks great lengths about the strength of the festival and its real ability to drive visits to the resort.”

This was the 12 th year for the Telus World Ski and Snowboard Festival, and the second year that Eckersley and her company, Watermark Communications, has produced the event.

Actual visitor numbers won’t be available for several weeks, but Eckersley presented her early data to Tourism Whistler’s commercial core committee on Wednesday. The message is positive overall, and will help set the direction of the festival for next year.

“As far as event attendance went, we sold out most of the big events like the pro photographer showdown, both filmmaker nights, the fashion show, and the Seasons world premiere. The Theatre Event would have sold out, but a block of tickets were returned by sponsors at the last minute. Events close to selling out were the Icon Gone, although I’m not sure how many tickets we sold for that, and the DJ Experience.”

Eckersley said the DJ Experience has been oversold in the past, and the decision was made to increase ticket prices to avoid the long lines and boost the level of talent.

“We’re in our fourth year for that event and we’re trying to find a happy medium,” she said. “Last year the ticket price was lower, it sold out, and things were kind of crazy. It’s hard to manage an event when it’s at capacity and there’s no opportunity to let anybody in. By raising the ticket prices and increasing the level of talent we were able to manage people’s expectations a little better and have a little wiggle room.”

The DJ Experience doesn’t make or lose money, said Eckersley, and the focus is on running a good event.

The increased cost of providing security and insurance for events like the Big Air and the DJ Experience have also forced TWSSF organizers to make changes.

“It’s a scary trend for us and it doesn’t seem to have plateaued yet,” said Eckersley. “Insurance for the sports events does seem to have plateaued after three years of going up, up and up to a ridiculous amount, but insurance for any events with a crowd or alcohol continues to increase. It’s problematic for all events in Whistler.”

Eckersley also acknowledged that the sports events will continue to need work. An increase in the number of events being held at this time of the year drained from the pool of pro skiers taking part in the Big Air and Superpipe contest, but Eckersley says six out of the top-10 ranked athletes still participated this year.

“The struggle is that some resorts are creating their own events during this time… but we’re still very happy with the talent pool coming to the events, and the skiers were very happy with the venues and the prize money,” she said.

The skiers had three events, including the Orage Masters where factory ski teams went head to head on a slopestyle course and were judged by the athletes themselves.

As well, the skiers were extremely happy with the design of the jump for the big air and the condition of the halfpipe, after the festival brought in World Cup course specialist Steve Petrie to supervise the venues.

“The Big Air jump was completely different, it was a monster jump and… it will do more to attract the top athletes than any amount of prize money we could have put up for the competition,” said Eckersley.

This year organizers decided not to run a rail jam in the village, which is something that Eckersley says was new and exciting when it was introduced but has become commonplace. They also decided to get rid of the Stompede slopestyle event, choosing to focus on the Orage Masters course.

TWSSF organizers also increased the amount of prize money to $150,000, up from $100,000 last year.

Still, despite the additional prize money, Eckersley said the festival is having trouble attracting the top snowboarders.

“We’re still trying to reach out and get the top snowboarders, but what we’re finding is that we’re bumping into them at the bottom of the hill — they’re here for the industry parties, but they’re not competing,” she said. “It’s a trend in the industry, where the athletes tend to focus more on filming and only compete a few times a year. They love the event, the parties and the whole scene, but they’re not entering the competitions.”

To increase snowboarder participation, the TWSSF is working on an event for next year that would be similar to the Orage Masters where teams of snowboarders would compete for the manufacturers they represent.

“The Orage Masters truly was the anti-comp, and it’s also the future for these kinds of events,” said Eckersley. “It also makes a lot of sense to use the venue for both skiers and snowboarders, and see what the athletes can do.”

As for what festival goers can expect next year, Eckersley is promising additional events in the Telus Whistler Conference Centre to make full use of rented AV equipment, additions to the filmmaker events and fashion show, and more focus on sports events. “It is a ski and snowboard festival,” said Eckersley, “and skiing and snowboarding will always have a prominent place in the festival.”

Eckersley says the festival has a lot to be positive about, and it’s not just the numbers and anecdotal evidence of strong bookings for both festival weekends. For one thing, Eckersley says the festival received more support and from the resort’s stakeholders than ever before.

“The support we had is the best I’ve seen in the nine years I’ve had the privilege of being involved in the festival,” she said. “For anybody who knows me personally or the history of the management team and the struggles that have gone on with various stakeholders, I really can’t say enough about Tourism Whistler, Whistler-Blackcomb and the municipality in terms of the support we received this year on so many level. Of course the festival is self-supporting, there was no money, but they provided more service than ever and more support in terms of marketing the festival and the events.”

She also said the community as a whole was supportive, although she has some concerns that the festival is being taken for granted by some businesses that are not as involved or as supportive as they could be.

“Our worry is that some people are getting a bit apathetic about the festival, and there’s an expectation that it doesn’t require nurturing to exist and to continue to grow,” she said. “There’s an expectation that it will always be there, but it really does require a community effort for this thing to exist. I worry that the memory of April in the past where there weren’t a lot of people in the resort is fading, and that people are forgetting what this event can and does do for the resort.

“There are obviously a few things that will need work or a little tweaking here and there, and we’ll continue to work on them, but the big picture is that the festival continues to be a success for the resort. Just look at the Big Air this year, the crowd was as big as we’ve ever seen.”