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Resorts Use Summer To "Put Heads In Beds"

By Craig Altschul
August 07, 2006

Last weekend in the rarefied air of mountain resorts: Herbie Hancock and more jazz greats than you can count on one set of piano keys were in Telluride, Colo., for the annual Telluride Jazz Festival. Some 3,000 people each day listened to those sweet sounds at multiple indoor and outdoor stages. Snowmass, over at Aspen, was a bit more esoteric with The Snowmass Wellness Experience with yoga, chocolate, fitness, and a bit of spirituality all mixed in. But, then things often can get esoteric in Aspen.

Thousands more moved up the hill from Denver for the 22nd Annual Rocky Mountain Wine, Beer & Food Festival at Winter Park Resort which benefits the National Sports Center for the Disabled (NSCD). That was Cajun Country Music you heard through the trees at Hunter Mountain in the New York Catskills. Headliners were Eddie Raven and the not-to-be missed River City Slim & The Zydeco Hogs.

The Industry Report checked in with two resorts sponsoring summer events on significantly different levels: Loon Mountain in New Hampshire, which specializes in low-key family programs like last weekend's Hot Dog Festival (it was free; just sit your buns down and pass the mustard), and Sun Valley, Idaho, where the memories of Sonja Henie and the sounds of music come together to put lots and lots of "heads in beds."

"No, we're not hitting the ball out of the park with our summer events, but that's not the goal," Loon Mountain's Stacy Lopes says. "These are small events aimed at the guests at our lodges and others throughout the Lincoln area. We still have to get the mountain ready for the winter, so we can't do too many of these things on the mountain."

The Hot Dog Festival celebrated Foot-Long, Polish, and All-American franks. You could have had your fill of the national foodstuff if you had stopped by with the family, but you probably would also have bought a bunch of gondola tickets, perhaps paid a visit to a mountain real estate office and made a deposit on a condo, and planned to come back this winter. Next up is the Ice Cream Festival over Labor Day Weekend, celebrating the end of the New England summer.

"These kinds of events are easy for us to manage," Lopes says. "We have great relationships with the lodges in the area, so they are ready to send people to the resort when their guests ask what there is to do that day."

But, does Loon lust for the bigger time? Well, yes, sort of. "We hosted the Scottish Highland Games for 27 years before they left us to be closer to a city and stayed near Concord for three years. They discovered a mountain venue like ours was a better environment and they are back here in late September, hopefully for good.

"We're thinking we'd like to host one major event a month next year if we can find the right ones and get outside groups to put them on," Lopes said. "But we won't give up on the smaller family events."

Meanwhile, summer is king at the venerable Sun Valley Resort in Idaho. The resort's Jack Sibbach told The Industry Report July and August bring the highest occupancy rates of the entire year. That's at the highest room rates, too, unlike most mountain resorts - $10-15 per room higher than winter.

"It's all about putting heads in beds," Sibbach says. "We look at potential events as a management team and decide how they fit our criteria of filling rooms, what the event could do for us five years from now, and then we decide how much support we want to give it."

The ghost of Sonja Henie is no doubt floating across the outdoor ice rink. She'll have some good company with the likes of Olympic and international skating stars such as 2002 Olympic Gold Medalists Alexei Yagudin, Jamie Sale, and David Pelletier every summer Saturday night at the long-running Summer on Ice show series.

"We produce this event ourselves and have hosted it since 1937," Sibbach said. "It starts at dusk and we average serving about 600 people seated in our Sun Valley Lodge Terrace Buffet and Sun Room Terrace, and as many as 1,000 people watch in the bleachers."

The Sun Valley Summer Symphony is in its 22nd season providing free concerts in a music tent on the Sun Valley Esplanade. It has become the largest privately funded free admission symphony in America and musicians culled from the nation's major symphony orchestras play before more than 20,000 people each season.

"The symphony represents another direction for our summer events," Sibbach says. "The Summer Symphony has its own board of directors - our general manager has a seat on its board - and it works well for us as so many people have dinner in our restaurants and stay at the resort because of them."

One last example is Sun Valley's version of the jazz event. The Sun Valley Jazz Jamboree started 15 years ago. "It's an example of an event we bet on to succeed and it did." Sibbach said they practically gave the rooms and site away for free to get it going. This year, he figures it will draw 7,000 people and the resort will be sold out as it closes its summer season.

Whether it's a hot dog in Lincoln, N.H., or a filet mignon in Sun Valley, it appears summer is indeed alive and doing well in the mountains.

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