Winning a dedicated and willing night crowd is no easy feat for ski resorts across the country. It takes a special something—often something unique to each ski resort—to build a night clientele a resort can count on, profit from, and bolster daytime business.

From moonlit snowshoe tours to cosmic tubing and from wine tastings paired with zipline adventures to charity nights, resorts are flexing their creative muscle to bring folks in.

Resorts that have made it work are proof that one size does not fit all. Rather, successful night programs are the result of managers studying their region and their clientele and creating something uniquely them.


MOUNT HOLLY: NIGHT SCHOOL
Take Mount Holly Ski Area, just outside of Detroit, where night skiing and riding account for a whopping 70 percent of the overall business. Mount Holly’s night programs are so successful, they have groups that drive south for an hour and a half or more to be a part of them. (“South” means “past other ski hills that might be closer to home.”)

The secret, resort GM Mark Tibbetts says, is part history and part pitching. Since Mount Holly has been the home hill to many a school ski (and ride) program for as long as 30 years, it has built hill cred. But the area doesn’t rest on that laurel. Each year, Tibbetts says, major effort is put into pitching schools and reminding them why they want to make Mount Holly their home ski and ride base.

“Our student progressive lesson program ties in all the local schools, and works with kids at all levels,” he says. “We can have as many as 300 to 400 participants here a night.”

Tibbetts said he sees the program as Mount Holly’s effort toward building a better tomorrow for the entire industry; thus the focus on building all levels of skiers. Since schools tend to stick to schedules no matter the weather, their skiers and riders learn, quickly, not to judge a good ski night on what you see in your backyard.

Mount Holly also works to find “sponsors” for the school programs, usually a teacher or administrator who loves skiing and believes in the benefits. These sponsors often purchase tickets for kids or raise funds to do so. But Mount Holly also offers deals to make skiing and riding affordable.

For the school program, kids tickets are just $16 (half price). More importantly, with their first purchase comes a card good for two free lessons. As kids progress, they can pay just $2.50 more to move into more advanced lessons.

At the same time, family members of students in the program are offered the same rate, and encouraged to learn themselves.

And of course, those families want to come back for more. “So the cafeteria does well, and the parents like to go into the lounge. I think this program has been the thing to keep us alive, particularly in difficult weather years,” he points out.


MOUNT HOOD SKIBOWL: COSMIC TUBING
Cosmic tubing at Mt. Hood Skibowl has been an out-of-this-world hit.

Who says nights are just for skiing and riding? Combining laser lights, strobe lights, reflective snow tubes, and a big sound system, Cosmic Tubing at Mount Hood Skibowl, Ore., is a party on snow. New this past year, the party is held every Saturday night at the Snow Tube & Adventure Park on Skibowl’s east side. Skibowl adds Friday nights during school holidays, and an entire week of cosmic nights during Oregon’s statewide spring break.

“We’ve created a unique environment and a fun winter experience for kids, teens and adults,“ says owner Kirk Hanna. “The response has been great.”

Party music, from dance to classic rock, sets the tone. Laser lights shine on the slopes and the neon green tubes, and black lights shine from above. Twelve groomed lanes accommodate tubers riding single or tandem. Cost is $30 for three hours, 7-10 p.m.

Hanna says the idea came to him when he was chatting with a friend who owns a cosmic bowling alley. “I thought: this could work here,” he says. So Skibowl invested time and money (the reflective tubes were made by the mountain staff) and hoped it would catch on.

Did it ever. “This exceeded all our expectations,” Hanna says. The resort welcomed as many as 400 guests a night to enjoy the cosmic vibe. “It’s just outrageous,” he says. “People tell us it’s the most fun they’ve ever had on a mountain.”

They don’t just flip on the lights and music, either. The way the lights and lasers work and the choice of music can be easily adapted. “We can mix it up depending on the crowd,” he says.

The program was so successful, Hanna and his team are considering packaging it in some way to offer it to other resorts. They’re also spending the off season figuring out how to out-cool their coolness of this past year.

“We want to continue to make it more and more entertaining,” he says. “This has given a whole new life to our nights, and could give a whole new life to the industry.”


GUNSTOCK: CREATIVE LIGHTING
At Gunstock Mountain, N.H., this past spring, a group of guests rode to the top of the mountain on the last lift of the day (4 p.m.), took part in a wine tasting paired with appetizers (and on another night, a beer tasting), and then stepped up to take the cool way down: one of the longest, fastest ziplines in the world. In the dark.

Gunstock offers a wine-tasting combined with a nighttime tour on one of the longest and fastest ziplines anywhere.

The idea came, actually, from a ski writer visiting Gunstock. “Heather Burke was up here and looking around and she said to us ‘When are you going to have a dinner and zip combination?’” says marketing director Bill Quigley. “And it got us thinking. We have always had decent business at night, but we are always asking ourselves, ‘what fun options can be had here with the operations we already have?’ This one seemed to make sense.”

And it has. Guests liked last year’s offerings so much, the resort is planning to offer more of them this winter.

Quigley says Gunstock has long used another tool for night fun that also makes sense: headlamps. Guests can put on resort-owned helmets equipped with headlamps to take part in night snowshoeing, night cross-country tours, and the zip events.

“We do a night cross-country wine and cheese tour many times all winter,” Quigley says, noting that while some resorts do monthly full moon tours, the headlamps make such tours possible at any time.

“Being out on the mountain at night like that, it’s just a whole different experience,” he says. “Sometimes there is no moon and it’s just dark and still. Sometimes there are so many stars you just cannot believe it. It’s great, and people love it.”


ECHO: RACE TRAINING
For Echo Mountain in Colorado, the key to night success was clear to GM Cindy Dady before she even accepted the job. Raised as an eastern skier (Greek Mountain was her home base), she understood well how smaller hills like Echo, at just 650 vertical feet, work.

“So I was sitting in the interview thinking, ‘My goodness. This would be an awesome training facility.’” That’s just what she initiated once she took over. Drawing from the huge mountains around Echo, from Winter Park to Vail and more, she created a night race training program for the other areas’ teams. That made sense not just because of the easy-to-access-from-Denver locale, but because Echo’s qualities suit it for this role.

“The area’s exposure is great, so we almost always have firm snow, and it truly is a single fall line,” she says. “And since we are 650 vertical, groups can take a two-hour block and these kids get six, eight, even nine looks from their coach.”

She planted the seed by contacting coaches she knew at Winter Park and asking them to consider coming to Echo at night for their teams to train. Winter Park bit, and before she knew it, more and more big mountains were on board. “Once you start getting Vail to come to play, you know something is working,” she says.

Vail and others realized that Echo could solve a dilemma they had: there is a wealth of kids on the Front Range who lacked the resources to get to Vail (and other big mountains) for training. Now, she says, more kids are getting into racing because they can access it. And from that, more families are growing as skiers. “It really brought the mountain to life,” she says.

Once night race training became established, Dady and her team went on to create “Monday Night Under the Lights,” a night racing program for adults who, before then, may have just dropped off their kids off.

Another thing she knew up front: not everyone can organize a full team. So Echo implemented the “you come, you race” program. In other words, an adult shows up ready to race, and they are put on a team that night. Echo also offers a free hour of coaching from experienced coaches for the adults before they start racing. That program is growing as well.


BRISTOL MOUNTAIN: CROSS IT UP
At Bristol Mountain in New York, just outside of Rochester, what’s old is new and, at least for the time being, what the future holds as well. “It’s all about focusing on bringing schools and groups in and making it a great experience for them,” says resort president Dan Fuller.

Bristol has long been the home base for many area schools—including college groups and clubs. That comes, he says, from focusing on their needs. “It’s a year round thing,” he says, “although it really kicks in after Labor Day.”

But Bristol also took an innovative and giant step when it added night Nordic skiing. Their two cross country loops—fully lighted, fully snowmaking covered and at the top of the mountain—debuted during the 2008 season. How successful has it been? The loops now welcome over 10,000 skiers annually.

And as goes the alpine, so goes the Nordic: the loops are also home to both classic and skate-skiing leagues, hosting eight teams and over 200 athletes.

Whether guests are skiers, riders, or XC skiers, Fuller sees night skiing as a must for his area, and for the industry. While it takes quite an effort to run night operations well, it accounts for about 30 percent of his business, and it’s good for skiing (and riding) overall.

“Particularly for resorts near a metropolitan area like we are, this really provides a tremendous opportunity for people who otherwise might not be able to get out and ski because they work full time and could only get out on the weekend,” he says. “We have a lot of season’s passholders, and many of them get out a few nights a week, even if only to ski for a couple of hours.


AFTON ALPS: REDEFINING “GROUP”
At Afton Alps in Minnesota, just outside the Twin Cities, night skiing is big (location never hurts). But according to manager Amy Reents, it was the area’s fine-tuning of what people need in a night program that helped them grow by leaps and bounds.

Specifically, the area redefined what a “group” was, and let the community know about it.

“Our groups are mostly church and school and Scouts and 4-H and the like,” she says. “We try to get them to book programs from three to 10 weeks long, and we try to get them to do packages with lessons.” Nothing unusual there.

But in recent years, Reents and the Afton crew noticed group business was falling off. The reason? “We found that it was hard for some groups to collect 25 or more people,” she says. The solution was simple: define “groups” as just 10 or more people. Lowering the group threshold led to a resurgence of night group business.

“At this point our group spots sell out pretty fast,” she says, noting that it is not uncommon for them to host as many as 1,200 kids on Thursdays and Fridays.


SCHWEITZER: CHARITY PAYS OFF
Schweitzer Mountain in Idaho is an anomaly: a destination area with night skiing and riding. Because it is an hour and a half from the closest city (Spokane), the night draw has always been limited. So the question was: how to make nights worthwhile? According to resort president and CEO Tom Chasse, the resort decided to take the nights and make them work for the common good. The result has been a feel-good vibe about the resort that’s marketing gold.

Each night of the season is available for local non-profits to “own,” he says. The organizations get tickets at $4 each, and are welcome to sell them for double or more, with all the profits going to their charity.

After six years of seeing night skiing as a loss leader, Chasse said the non-profit program has worked well. For the community, he says, it shows Schweitzer cares about them. And it provides a chance for lapsed skiers or newcomers to take part at a low price—and do good for others at the same time.

The non-profit night has become popular, with many charitable groups vying for spots. And from that, more folks have discovered not just night skiing, but Schweitzer itself. As a promotion, “it’s been quite successful,” he says.

Night success is relative, and depends on where you are. But the resorts that win big understand the need for local appeal. So they study themselves and their local markets, and become exactly what their communities need. And the result? As Bristol’s Fuller sums it up, “Sometimes when I’m up on the mountain at night, I see the kids out there. They are in fresh air, getting exercise and partaking in a sport we all love. I mean, how rewarding is that?”