SAM Magazine—Grand County, CO—April 10, 2023—Sales of the 2023-24 Indy Pass have been suspended after the volume of renewals and purchases by new passholders exceeded expectations. The pass had only been available to new customers for 10 days. Officials plan to reassess their sales goals in terms of volume and capacity. 

“We’re metering our sales based on our historical numbers in order to prevent runaway growth from overwhelming some of our most popular resorts,” explained Indy Pass founder Doug Fish. 

A limited number of additional passes may be available this fall after resort partners have time to evaluate. Record 2023-24 renewals, and unprecedented new passholders for the upcoming season made the sales cutoff necessary, but Fish said it came about two months earlier than anticipated.

“We committed early-on to restricting pass sales but weren't sure when the cut off would occur,” he said. “Originally, I think we planned to sell into June but renewal percentages are way ahead of last year.”

Fish said resort partners are further analyzing their capacity for Indy Pass visits. Indy Pass sales were up 50 percent in 2022-23 and have grown by 150 percent since 2021-22. The number of skiers and riders purchasing an Indy Pass as a second pass, or the Indy AddOn pass, has been fairly consistent over the past three seasons.

In addition to establishing comfortable sales volumes and capacity levels, developers at the Indy Pass are also improving the redemption process, including direct-to-lift access via RFID at about 30 partner ski areas, a move that Fish says should improve the efficiency of redemptions by at least 50 percent.

“We had some hour-long lines at the Indy Pass ticket windows this past season that really woke us up to the fact that we need to pump the brakes while we streamline the redemption process,” Fish said

Direct-to-lift will be enabled at partner ski areas that run Entabeni software, the Colorado-based software firm that purchased the Indy Pass earlier this spring. 

Erik Mogensen, founder and managing director of Entabeni, said his firm is working to identify more efficiencies in the process with all 104 Indy partner ski areas. 

[see EXCLUSIVE SPECIAL REPORT: INDY PASS GETS NEW OWNER, MAINTAINS INDEPENDENCE] 

So, will the sales limitation affect ski area partners differently depending on their size or region of the country? 

Fish said Indy is “still building-in growth for 2023-24, just not as much as the market will allow. It remains to be seen how the restrictions will affect each region.”  

The Indy Pass didn’t originate as a get-it-while-you can product. Up until now, it could be purchased well into the ski season.

As the Indy Pass evolves, though, it finds itself in a balancing act between continuing to grow its customer base while also trying to reign-in visits at its most popular ski areas. That surge in growth may leave some skiers and riders left “Indy” dust without a pass for 2023-24. 

“Our success requires us to pay attention to our overall impact on visits,” Fish said. “We don’t want to create a negative perception that Indy Pass is contributing to crowding at our partner resorts, we’ve seen the unfortunate consequences of that perception with Ikon and Epic.”

In other news, Oregon’s Mt. Hood Meadows and Mt. Ashland joined the 102 other partner ski areas that are returning for the 2023-24 season. 

"We had a great first season on the Indy Pass, continue to see strong visitation, and look forward to welcoming even more passholders from across the U.S. next season," said Mt. Hood Meadows marketing director Dave Tragethon.

Fish said returning cross-country and allied resort partners will be announced in May.

Report by Troy Hawks