Skiers: RFID lift tickets? Whaddaya think?

[Robb]

How would you feel, as a skier/boarder, about RFID tags on lift tickets and season passes?

No one checking your ticket at the bottom of the run, just go by the reader thingy at whatever speed you'd like, and get on the lift.

Buy a half day pass? Usually they start at noon, but what if you want to ski early? Ski in the morning, keep skiing in the afternoon and automatically get a bill. Buy a three day pass? Computer keeps track of how many days you've been out, maybe lets your hotel know if you're on your last day.

Season pass holders could get an accurate number of vertical feet skied each season, even broken down by difficulty of terrain.

Parents could go to the ticket office and ask where their kid was, ticket office could say they last went up Lift 4 (or whatever). Same with missing people at the end of the day, speeding up patrol's response time.

Obviously the ski area could figure out where people like to go, and tune grooming and such in that direction. "Look, no one goes on the bunny hill during spring break, they're all in the terrain park, let's expand it."

...Or is it too Big-Brother-ish?

[Superfly]

1. Lower the price of a lift ticket to around $25

then we can talk about other nifty stuff.

I have boycotted skiing for 2, going on 3 years, because it's now a rich person's sport. A family of 4 cannot afford to spend $55 per ticket, lunch, gas to and fro, more than once a season.

This is very hard for me to do, as skiing was my life, so much so that I tried out for the DSV (Deutsche Schi Verein).

[JHB]

4. I second the motion.

I don't see the gadgets improving things markedly, but I can think of plenty of glitches and don't see it making the prices more reasonable.

What good is a sport if you can't afford to practice it?

[Superfly]

5. It's the same reason I boycott

professional sports. The athletes (and in this case, the ski resorts) are taking the sports away from the average working person.

Most ski resorts are owned by mega-huge resort and real-estate developers, who charge these rates because they know some dumb, rich sucker is going to pay for it. Not this bubba.

I did, however, switch to telemark skiing. I now earn my vertical drop.

[Robb]

7. It's the worker's lament

...Anything that reduces workforce reduces costs.

[LuminousX]

2. I'm a sucker for technology

I would love to have an RFID tag to track the runs I skied, the number of times I skied, and even run times. This would allow the resort to offer special billing such as a pass that only lets you ski down the hill once (good for someone like my Dad when he would take me skiing, he could only really go down once - health reasons - but had to pay for the half day ticket.)

[MaineDem]

3. It's already being done

If it's the same technology, I've seen it at Attatash in NH for one.

You pay for the pass and it tallies which lifts you ride and deducts the charge accordingly. You only pay for what you ski.

I think it's excellent, the "big brother" issue notwithstanding.

[northzax]

6. mt. bachelor in Oregon

has had a preliminary version of this for at least a decade. you can pay by the time, pay by the run, page someone (enter their number and a message comes up on the screen when they wave their ticket) do all sorts of things. time will come when you'll be able to get information about your day off of a website.

it's actually a good idea, let's you deal with only buying a run or two on a less high quality day (there are no bad days) and improves the speed of lines. also, you can buy tickets good for only certain lifts, and different lifts have different prices.

how long until variable point values come into play? what? run x is very popular today? 20 points. meanwhile, run Y is only 10.

[Braden]

8. I like it.

I hate the fact that If I want to ski a half day its the second half of the day when the trails are icy and rutted.

Lift lines still need a yound South African hottie attendant to preserve order and keep things moving along.

[hlthe2b]

9. that's ok.. but the plan to institute rapid pass through for $$$$

is repulsive to me (special expedited lines for those who want to pay more).

Damn it, must everything become classist?

Pretty soon the big bucks crowd will demand their own runs, hell, their own mountain!

[Robb]

10. Hehe... they do...

...Telluride.