Pico Follows Killington with Subscription Pass Option, Teasing Skiing’s Future
Is this how Vail intends to “change everything?”
March 18, 2021
As tiny Pico steps into the subscription future, can Vail be far behind?
Three years ago, Killington, long the most audaciously performative mountain in the Northeast, did a very Killington thing: it introduced the Beast 365 pass, a sort of super-season pass that included access to everything the mountain offered: skiing at Killington and neighboring Pico, golf, mountain biking, adventure park access, and more.
For Killington, the pass made sense. No ski area in the Northeast is more committed to the long season, which at The Beast can stretch from October to June. Parent company Powdr had made substantial investments in building out the summer business. Killington was truly a year-round resort, and a year-round pass made sense. Skiers could still buy a regular ski season pass, of course, for $939. But the upgrade, at around $1,200, offered a compelling value for anyone even considering the resort’s non-snow activities. And the Beast 365 came with a tantalizing incentive: rather than put up the full amount right away, passholders could opt into $99 monthly payments. It was a subtle but significant shift in how Killington was rethinking its pass model.
“It’s really got a lot of traction,” Killington GM Mike Solimano told me on The Storm Skiing Podcast in 2019, noting that sales had increased 50 percent in the pass’ second season. “It’s more of a subscription-based model like a lot of people are used to, and I think people see a ton of value in it.”
READ MORE
Posted from The Storm Skiing Journal
