SAM Magazine—Olympic Valley, Calif., Jan. 20, 2025—Attendance was up at NSAA’s Western Winter Conference, with more than 670 ski industry folks gathering at Palisades Tahoe, Jan. 14-16, for the education and networking event. Total attendance surpassed numbers for 2024 and 2023.

NSAA’s new CEO Mike Reitzell welcomed everyone at a hosted breakfast during first tracks on Wednesday morning, which brought bluebird skies to a slightly less-snowy-than-average Tahoe. 

Education sessions, as always, included a variety of topics. Among the most popular were sessions on psychological and physical workplace safety, accessibility challenges, AI implementation, predicted federal policy changes, the liability release landscape, and fire resilience. 

This year, the winter conference included an earlier-than-usual session examining data from the Economic Analysis. In 2023-24, annual revenue per skier visit set a record high—this was generally considered a positive. For the first time, season passes surpassed day tickets for the larger share of ticket revenue—a data point that many viewed with concern.

There were also two full-day education sessions on Thursday: the NSAA lift safety bootcamp, and a “Making Inclusion Work” workshop.

The trade show floor was busy throughout, with 299 exhibitors and supplier personnel in attendance at the conference. While networking and perusing the exhibitor stalls, attendees discussed the growing cost of day tickets and what, if anything, should be done about it, as well as the industry-wide fallout from the Park City patrol union strike over the Christmas holiday period.

Among those networking at the conference was a group of operators and suppliers from France, who traveled to the show with Cluster Montagne, a French mountain tourism entity. The delegation—which included leaders from Avoriaz 1800, Compagnie des Alpes, Méribel, and Val Thorens—was there with an eye toward information sharing and strengthening partnerships between the U.S. and French ski industries.

While in the region, the group also visited Sugar Bowl, Northstar, Kirkwood, and Heavenly. SAM and NSAA’s Reitzell joined them at Heavenly, where resort leadership provided a shuttle-to-summit tour of the operation.