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TWSSF surpasses expectations for participation

Cultural side of festival boosted by sellouts; increased focus on athletes in next few years

By Andrew Mitchell

Survey results and numbers from hotels are still coming in, but all indicators suggest the 2007 Telus World Ski and Snowboard Festival is a bigger late season draw to Whistler than ever before.

“We don’t have all the stats as of yet, and we’re still waiting for Tourism Whistler’s report, but we do know as a certainty that we eclipsed the week before the festival in terms of accommodation and rooms booked, and were booked through the festival as well,” said Sue Eckersley, who wrapped up her first year as managing director for the festival.

“We are still waiting for our survey results to come in from the village to get the overall enjoyment rating for this festival and that kind of information, but the anecdotal evidence we have and what I’ve heard so far is that people are quite pleased with the festival this year, and believe it did a good job of driving visitation, that the resort rocked, and people enjoyed all the events that were going on.”

Interest in festival events was stronger than previous years. All of the ticketed events to the festival sold out with the exception of the fashion show, and that event had just a hundred tickets remaining.

“We’ve never really held an event before where it was completely sold out, and all kinds of people came and lined up anyway to get tickets in case people didn’t show up,” said Eckersley. “We’re excited about the buzz those events are creating and will continue to build on those as a focus of the festival.”

The festival also made an effort this year to expand the number of sports events, adding a second big air contest, incorporating the “If Ullr Was A Girl” contest, and introducing a festival-wide contest that presented the top athlete at the end of the 10 days with a new car. That’s only the beginning of a plan to revitalize the festival’s sporting events, says Eckersley.

“We’re refocusing some of our energy on sporting and athletic events and I think you’ll see the trend increase even more in the next couple of years,” she said. “Over the last few years we’ve focused a lot more on what the athletes want and worked to get the athletes stoked about what we’re doing, and we’ll be looking to do more next year. There will be an increased focus on ensuring the best athletes are here, that the athletes are treated well, and that this is the number one place that the industry wants to be in the spring.

“While the actual numbers for the industry may be low compared to the general public, the industry is critical for setting the tone of the 10 days. They are the sponsors of parties, the life of the party, and where the legends begin. We certainly recognize that… value their presence here, and will continue to do things to ensure they continue to come.”

One new event that was scheduled for the festival, the XCX (cross-country cross), was cancelled due to low registration, but otherwise all of the qualifier spots open to the public were sold out weeks before the festival.

Local support for the festival was good as always, says Eckersley, although the festival was disappointed that the Resort Municipality of Whistler passed along some of the policing costs to the festival organizers.

“We’re totally with them (the municipality) in terms of making sure the amount of policing and security we have at the festival is the right amount, but we were on different pages went it comes to the festival having to pay for it,” said Eckersley.

“We went to the municipality and asked them to cover the costs, armed with third party data to show that the municipality benefits from over $800,000 in revenue from the festival, to cover a $25,000 police bill. It was voted down.

“We’re going to sit down with the municipality and discuss this. I understand that part of it could have been timing… and we’re going to look at the potential to work things out in the future. It would be great if we could look at this as a community. It’s different for private, ticketed events, we don’t have a problem paying for security and policing at those kinds of events, but when it’s a public event like the big air or the concerts where the motivation is driving people to the resort, we shouldn’t be penalized for being successful with that.”

There will be some “minor tweaks” to the festival next year, but Eckersley doesn’t anticipate any large changes to the program.

“There are always things we can do cleaner at every festival and would do a little differently, and certainly we get lots of feedback from the public. We’ll tweak, add a few things, and work to make sure the content is fresh and that there are new and exciting things so it never becomes stale. But at this point we’re not looking to do any major overhauls. The core of the festival is working very well.”

According to Breton Murphy, spokesman for Tourism Whistler, early indicators are positive.

“Anecdotally, our research indicators suggest that the room nights booked during the period of the festival increased over the same period in 2006. While final numbers won’t be available until mid-May, the pace of bookings made in the weeks leading up to the festival was strong.”

One part of the reason for the strong bookings was the decision to host the Mountain Travel Symposium in Whistler during the festival, an international mountain travel conference and travel package buying event that brought out more than 1,000 delegates.

According to Eckersley, Whistler-Blackcomb and Tourism Whistler also played a greater role in advertising and promoting the festival this year, which had a positive effect on overall numbers and sales to ticketed events.

Final results from the surveys and accommodation statistics will be available in the next few weeks.