Sneak Peek of the Week
Estes Park hosts Sundance’s Hollywood aspirants as Colorado plots larger role in movie-making landscape
$30.3 million
Colorado film office incentives provided to 129 media projects in the state since 2012, which led to the hiring of 6,023 cast and crew workers.
In a couple months, Estes Park is going to host about 120 up-and-coming filmmakers from around the country at the historic Stanley Hotel. It’s the first time the Sundance Institute’s Directors Lab has left its 40-year home in Park City, Utah.
In the backdrop of the Sundance visit to Estes Park, there’s a planned $450 million upgrade to the Stanley with a new film center curated by a Hollywood heavyweight. Colorado is exploring ways to elevate its backwater status in the film production realm and the Sundance Film Festival is negotiating a new contract with its longtime host Park City as the festival’s boss riffs on the challenges of hosting more than 100,000 visitors in the busy resort town.
Could the aspiring moviemakers ambling the halls of the iconic hotel where Stephen King conjured “The Shining” portend more for Estes Park?
Officially, that would be a “no comment” from just about everyone. But behind closed doors, there’s a whispered hope that the Directors Lab could be the first step in luring either the Sundance Institute or, possibly, the country’s largest film festival to Colorado.
Locals in Park City have long grumbled about the 10-day Sundance Festival that draws upward of 100,000 visitors in January, the height of ski season to a resort town that regularly hosts more than 1.7 million visits every winter.
Sundance Institute CEO Joana Vicente in a live recording of “The Town” podcast in Park City in January said “Park City is part of Sundance” while noting the challenges of a wintertime festival at the base of the country’s largest ski area.
The speculation about a possible move from Park City ramped up after the podcast dropped. “Would Sundance really leave Utah?” The Deseret News asked, spinning forward an anonymously sourced Deadline article from July 2023 that said the Sundance Institute was “fielding bids from a handful of cities to relocate the festival.”
It’s unclear if Estes Park has the capacity for a festival of 100,000. Kara Franker, the CEO of Visit Estes Park, declined to comment. So did Colorado film office boss Donald Zuckerman.
Lawmakers have tinkered with funding for the Colorado Office of Film, Television and Media in recent years, delivering a $5 million bump in 2023 that helped the state land production and filming for the Amazon Prime thriller “Elevation.”
“Five million is not enough to spur the industry,” said state Rep. Leslie Herod, who wants to see the office funded at $5 million a year. (That compares with $330 million a year in California, $110 million a year in New Mexico and $75 million in Arizona.)
And then there’s the Stanley plan. State economic development champions have promised $46 million in sales tax rebates for a $54 million new film center at the hotel. In January, Gov. Jared Polis trumpeted that Blumhouse — the producer of horror flicks like “Halloween” and “Get Out” — would curate exhibit space at the planned film center.
And there’s a complex bonding plan to deliver $450 million in tax-free funding to the new nonprofit owner of the Stanley Hotel that will build the film center and expand the hotel.
“We have never done anything like this,” said Mark Heller, the executive director of the Colorado Educational and Cultural Facilities Authority, which is brokering the bonding deal.
>> Click over to The Sun on Friday to read this story
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In Their Words
There’s more than tragedy in the story of Spider Sabich
Speaking of Redford … here’s a quick word association game: What’s the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear the name Spider Sabich?
Is it how the dashing Aspen ski racer died after being shot by his fading Hollywood starlet girlfriend in 1976? Maybe the ensuing tabloid coverage of the Aspen trial? How that girlfriend — who ended up marrying her Aspen lawyer — only spent 30 days in the local jail after her conviction?
That bothers Amy Roberts, the daughter of 50-year movie star Robert Redford. She is making a feature-length documentary about Sabich, who inspired her father’s character in the seminal 1969 film “Downhill Racer.”
“The essence and heart of this is to talk about Spider’s life, and not just about his death,” Redford told Aspen journalist and Sun freelancer Andrew Travers this week.
Redford has partnered with Sabich’s daughter, Missy Greis, marking the first time the Sabich family has spoken publicly about the charismatic skier.
Sabich grew up as the son of a police officer near Lake Tahoe, California. He was an exceptional ski racer and competed for the University of Colorado, the U.S. Ski Team at the 1968 Winter Olympics in France, and on the World Cup circuit from 1967 to 1970.
Robert Redford and Aspen novelist James Salter embedded with the U.S. team in Europe and traveled with them to France in 1968 as the pair developed the screenplay for “Downhill Racer.” Redford was drawn to the quiet but larger-than-life Sabich.
Amy Redford said her father put it this way: “The best parts of that character were inspired by Spider Sabich, the lesser parts were probably inspired by me.”
>> Click over to The Sun to read Andrew’s exemplary story
The Playground
Indoor skiing at new Snobahn in Thornton could help resort industry’s scramble for new skiers
11.6 million
Number of active skiers and snowboarders who visited U.S. resorts in 2022-23, marking a three-year annual increase after decades of stagnant participation
Skiers are old. While most of the skiers and snowboarders riding chairlifts in the country are 17 or younger, the size of that majority has been declining for the past decade.
Skiing is white. About 88% of all U.S. chairlift riders are white, a ratio that has not changed much in the past decade as the country’s demographics shift toward a white minority in the next 20 years.
Colorado is the epicenter of American skiing, accounting for more than 20% of visits to the country’s ski resorts, yet only 7.8% of the state participates in skiing and 4.3% of the state’s 6 million residents snowboard. More skiers and snowboarders come from Florida and Texas than Colorado.
Skiing is expensive. More than a third of skiers earn $100,000 or more a year. While season passes for core skiers are cheaper than 30 years ago — thanks to the now-ubiquitous business model that gets skiers to buy tickets and passes well before winter — day lift tickets and ski lessons have never been pricier, which challenges the resort industry’s ability to recruit newcomers.
Skiing struggles to retain newcomers. Since 2000 an industry-wide effort to convert 25% of the first-timers in ski lessons into regular skiers has foundered, barely moving the needle from 15%.
Merrill Sadler has a plan to change all that. The owner of Snobahn opened his second indoor ski facility in Thornton last week, joining ski racing legend Bode Miller in debuting an action-sports training ground that could get more kids off screens and outside. With slanted revolving carpets that mimic a snowy slope, mirrors and $60 lessons, Snobahn could train as many as 14,000 skiers a year at its Thornton and Centennial locations.
“Our business is 60% youth, 40% adult, 95% beginner or intermediate,” Merrill told Sun freelancer Chloe Anderson. “And 98% of our customers say they’ll be lifelong skiers.”
Jamie Colt teaches first-timers how to carve a snowboard on the revolving slope. If his students were at a ski hill, they would be paying hundreds of dollars with an instructor to get 20 turns every 10 minutes using a chairlift.
“We do 20 turns every 30 seconds,” Colt said.
>> Click over to The Sun on Friday to read Chloe’s story
The Guide
Vail Resorts: visits are down, earnings are up
$1.1 billion
Revenue generated by Vail Resorts in November, December and January
Skier visits are down 9.7% at Vail Resorts’ 37 North American ski areas so far this winter, with snowfall 42% lower than the start of the previous 2022-23 winter, when the company reported a record 17.2 million visits.
Vail Resorts CEO Kirsten Lynch called the start of the season “incredibly challenging,” but said improved snowfall — and a higher-than-usual percentage of the 2.4 million skiers who have already bought Epic passes and lift tickets but not used them — indicates visitation will rebound.
Despite the challenges with snow and declining visitation, Vail Resorts this week reported an annual 7.7% increase in earnings for the three months that ended in Jan. 31. The company reported $1.1 billion in revenue for those three months, a slight decrease from the previous season.
The stability of earnings and a small drop in revenues after a slow start to the season and declining visits reflects Vail Resorts’ overarching strategy to harvest 75% of its lift-ticket revenue from skiers who buy long before the snow falls. Before the emergence and proliferation of advanced purchase season passes and lift tickets in the late 2000s, a poor snow year and downturn in skier numbers would have dealt blows to bottom lines.
The Vail Resorts second-quarter report showed fewer skiers spending more on lessons, dining and gear at the company’s retail and rental stores. (The company does not break out visitation or spending by individual resorts or even by state or region.)
“There is no sign they are pulling back on spending, but they are pulling back on visitation,” Lynch told investors, noting that she was anticipating a strong spring as conditions improved at its resorts in all its regions — the Northeast, California, the Rockies and Pacific Northwest.
Vail Resorts told investors to expect earnings between $847 million and $889 million on close to $3 billion in revenue for the fiscal 2024 year that ends July 31, which gives Vail Resorts an earnings yield of about 30% on its revenue. In September the company told investors to expect earnings between $912 million and $968 million with a margin around 31%. In January, the company told investors that visits were down 16.2% compared to the previous season and estimated the year’s revenue would fall into the lower half of the September guidance.
The company reported access to $1.4 billion, with $812 million in cash on hand and $409 million in loan availability. The company reported $2.8 million in debt.
In November, Vail Resorts acquired a majority interest in the Crans Montana ski area in the Swiss Alps for $135 million. The company announced plans to invest $34 million in the resort in the next five years and the resort is expected to deliver an additional $17 million in earnings a year. The purchase price was about eight times the resort’s expected cash flow, which is along the lines of traditional resort valuations over the years. (So Vail Resorts did not spend crazy money on its second European ski hill.)
We don’t know how much Vail Resorts’ competitor Alterra Mountain Co. paid for its most recent acquisition, Arapahoe Basin, because the company is privately owned. One investment representative asked if Vail Resorts looked at acquiring Arapahoe Basin.
Lynch reminded the investor that Vail Resorts sold Arapahoe Basin in the late 1990s due to federal anti-trust concerns with its purchase of Breckenridge and Keystone. Vail Resorts had a 20-year partnership with Arapahoe Basin before the ski area in 2022 ended its partnership that allowed unlimited access for Epic Pass skiers.
“It makes a lot of sense to us that Alterra appears to be pursuing a strategy that might be more similar to our strategy of an owned and operated model,” Lynch said.
Alterra Mountain Co. and Vail Resorts last week released prices for the 2024-25 passes, with annual increases around 8%, which is similar to the rate of increase in previous seasons.
The Ikon Pass, with access to 58 ski destinations and April skiing for early-purchasers at several resorts including Steamboat and Winter Park, starts at $1,249 and the more restrictive Ikon Base selling for $869.
Vail Resorts’ Epic Pass is selling for $982 for 2024-25, with unlimited access to all 42 of the company’s ski areas, plus seven days at Telluride ski area and access to partner resorts in Canada, Europe and Japan. The company’s Epic Local is offered for $731 with holiday restrictions and unlimited access to 32 ski areas. The company’s Epic Day passes sell for as little as $52 for non-peak days at 22 resorts to $129 for unrestricted access to all 42 ski hills.
Melting snow to drink on the side of I-70
There are hundreds of cars stranded on Interstate 70 right now between Floyd Hill and Silverthorne as an upslope storm buries the Front Range.
In the snowy mess is a ski bus with 50 women who ran out of food and water hours ago.
“We’re in good spirits,” Mary Wagner, one of the skiers on the bus, told The Colorado Sun’s Jen Brown on Thursday morning. “But we’re done now.”
The group’s chartered bus left Vail on Wednesday at 3:30 p.m. after a day on the slopes. The bus broke down and was towed up Vail Pass. The bus recovered and crawled through accidents to reach the eastbound Johnson tunnel but traffic on I-70 stopped just east of Idaho Springs.
The women on the bus spent 16 hours without moving, sending a sort of SOS email, asking for help and noting a full toilet tank. By Thursday morning, the wine, beer, brownies and cookies the women typically snack on during their weekly bus rides, were gone by dawn.
The women were melting snow to drink.
Jen heard the women laughing as she spoke to Wagner.
That is until Wagner speculated that they might sit there for another four or five hours.
“Everyone is trying to make the best of it,” Wagner said.
CDOT at noon reported that traffic was beginning to move on I-70.
>> Click here to read Jen’s story
— j
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