Originally Posted by
cdskier
So what's your solution? Charge people in their 20s straight out of college full adult prices? In which case they decide that is too much money at that point and drop out of the sport and never come back? That's exactly what was happening with the old pricing strategy and it was not painting a bright future for sustainability of the sport. Back when the For 20s was announced it was discussed that a major goal was to reverse that trend and get people to keep skiing until they are older, making more money, done paying off college debt, etc and have them hooked by that point. You're really not "subsidizing" anything. In theory even though passes like the For 20s are cheaper, they should make up for that in volume sales. I would bet good money that if you looked at how many 20-30 year olds bought full passes before vs how many buy them now with the cheaper pricing, the number is substantially higher. So even if the price is 1/3 of a full pass, if you simply triple your sales in that age category you're now bringing in the same amount of pass revenue. Increase sales further and you're exceeding your previous revenue from that age category. And now you have more people going to the mountain and potentially spending more on other things (i.e. drinks, food, etc).
On the flip side, you've benefited from a free 12 and under pass based on your comments. At many other resorts you would have been paying for that pass. That is a benefit SB has that is often overlooked when people talk purely about pass prices.
There are pros and cons to all the other passes you mentioned as well. Price is only one factor in the equation. They each can be great under the right circumstances for the right person.