2013 Buller Season Pass Speculation Thread
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luvthabumps said:
In case you havent noticed, skidown has a bit of a history of this sort of thing.Last edited by a moderator:
Come on children...
I'd like to see some quality debate/options be put forward. Generic Buller bashing is a bit passe...
Now now MX, it's quite amusing to see skidown try and bully Mt Buller, as if they care what he, or any of us think.
The ignore button is there if you don't want to read my crap/posts/rants/information.
At the same time I am not going to bang-on about it in every thread or respond to every post on here.
Goes both ways
Vermillion said:
I have already said they don't care what I or anyone on here thinks/says in principle.
However, they DO care what 25,000 people on Facebook read, and I am sure they do care about what xx,xxx people who read this forum and don't post...
Which is the fun part
Anyways, let's wait and see if Hotham/Falls do another Hero Pass for this year.
I am sure if they do and Buller doesn't respond in a slightly better manner than last year it will end up the same as this year has.Last edited by a moderator:
I tend to agree that they will probably do nothing next year.
It's all too easy to blame any visitation issue on the poor season start, and they will no doubt roll out the standard 'premier experience' line. As i've said before, I would bite at around $800, especially if they packaged something up to include summer MTB lift access.I think Buller are taking the easy money from increased day-trip visitation and telling all the skiers to get stuffed.
From a financial view, you can't really blame them. With Lake Mountain and Baw Baw now becoming unreliable snowplay venues, Buller has now has a huge new revenue stream that requires very little infrastructure to keep satisfied.
Makes sense to a degree.
From a quality skiing/advanced terrain POV, Buller is often quite marginal, but it's a pretty reliable snowball hill.
If that's the case, and day trippers are the cream, why not throw a deal out to SP buyers anyway to keep them happy and minimise leakage? I guess 'captive audience' addresses that.
PG said:
How many weekends since the season started has LM and BB NOT had sufficient snowplay snow compared to Buller? Your quest to ensure LM and BB are completely off the radar as snowplay venues, which underlies your desire to push your climate change views on to everyone else, is showing through quite glaringly.
I'm pretty sure teckel will tell you that LM has been open for snowplay since the season started on almost every weekend (might have missed a few though).Last edited by a moderator:
Baw Baw has actually had a decent season. Not huge snow depth, but they don't need a deep cover for skiing, let alone toboggans.
MickM said:
Totally agree, but have a think about the proportion of overnight accommodation that's reliant on BB1 as their first lift of the day.Last edited by a moderator:
Maybe it'd help to have btags you can hole-punch, and put them on lanyards so they're not next to mobile phones and credit cards.
And move the gates back 5m or more so people with the unreadable btag have time to catch up with their friends.Madski said:
One of the reasons why there are more than two people at the bottom of Blue Bullet.
It does not take two lifties to operate a chair. One should be out front orchestrating and also keeping an eye on if the other lifty needs assistance.
As for riding the chair up with your mates, if you snooze you lose. Can't get yourself organised, you can meet your mate up the top and make some new mates on the way up.Last edited by a moderator:Well, looks like they will push me ever closer to not buying a pass next year. I can understand all the economic rationalizing etc, but the customer service is terrible. I bought a mid-week pass for $600 as an early bird. First time in 5 years that I haven't forked for the whole thing. I got about 8 lift rides over 2 rain soaked half days earlier in the season and then found out I would be traveling for work. I called to find out if I could maybe get a pro rata refund.
Now I don't mind if someone just says no to me, that's fine. I don't like it, but those are the rules. What I can't stand is 4 phone calls, 2 emails and as a last resort facebook messages - all unanswered. I finally got on to someone that told me if I could provide a medical certificate I could get a credit towards next years pass.
Way to encourage me to bring my new family to the snow!
miss_b_haven
One of Us
benchives said:benchives said:
What the?! Good Lawd people are gonna think we're here for snow and skiing! I'm just here for the testosterone.
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Buller has some deals.
1. Buy one full priced day ticket and get another day ticket at full price.
2. Buy an overpriced season pass with unlimited full priced day tickets for any friends and family.
I am just wondering where the [x] is for de-icing of your chair before you load? I must not have ticked that box. How much extra will it cost?Stratus said:
I notice with the advent of all the season pass deals that day & half day tickets are starting to look even more expensive and for ad hoc skiing there's not many alternatives except perhaps going XC or staying at home.
Oh for a 5 day anytime priced at around say $75-$80 per day of 5 half days at around $60 per day <sigh!>
Back to my dream!Last edited by a moderator:
skidown said:
The really need to get on board with Copper Mtn and Air Pacific.
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Sadie said:
A lift like BB1 needs two people on the ramp because of all the beginners and kids. They tend to not move that quickly to the load line and generally require way more assistance.Last edited by a moderator:Seth said:
Which is why I said watching to see if the other lifty needs assistance. Having someone out there orchestrating enables the lifties to get a feel of who is in line. See some kids come through, go and help with the load. See worse than normal beginners, help with load.
Generally, yes you would have two people at the ramp, but there should always be someone out there orchestrating as well. You get some stupid stuff going on in the queue race for BB1 and there needs someone out there keeping an eye on it.
I also said that it does not take two lifties to "operate" a chair. I have been there where there have been 3 lifties inside. Two on one side of the controls. The reason there are more than 2 stationed there is so that someone can be outside!
Reason I know this? I've worked it
Last edited by a moderator:Agree ^
At Falls Creek, at the bottom of Falls Express which never gets crowded anything like BB1 does, there was an Orange vest customer service dude, 2 lifties at the gates and a furthur two lifties at loading on top of the 2 staff scanning tickets. That's 7 staff at bottom of one lift!!
Besides all of them saying hello to you, everyone seemed to work together to get the queues sorted and helped beginners who had trouble keeping up in the lines.Last edited by a moderator:
This isn't shabby imo:
3 Day Any Day pass - online ONLY offer
Available for purchase online ONLY and valid for use ANY day for the remainder of the 2012 season, this discounted pass will have you skiing like a kid at $59 a day for adults on a $177 3 Day pass and only $100 for a 3 day pass for kids right through to Year 12.
I'm speculating there'll be a 10 day any day btag for around $800 which lets you ski every weekend and has no blackout days.The undisclosed limiting condition of the 2012 mid week pass was that many lifts closed mid week so buyer beware .
The cause was not snow conditions it was clearly lack of staffing in the words of the company itself and a lack of staff that are largerly unskilled is simply a lack of wage funding from the employer and not a lack fo skilled people available to do the job.
Therefore the closing of lifts was not by circumstances beyond the control of Ski lift Mt Buller and as such there is no indication it will not be the case in 2013.
I get the feeling Buller are happy getting their business from the weekend tourist crowd, they don't seem too desperate to compete at all. And I know this has been discussed over and over but I was seriously expecting them to release a more competitive deal this time around.
Considering the Hero Pass ends on Monday...
Stratus said:
We all lived in hope, but if it were to be good news they would have been shouting it from the rooftops a couple of weeks ago.
I'm expecting tweaking of the midweek or 10 day offerings as described above, but expecting to pay full freight for a full pass.
I do know that Buller was disappointed by the low take-up of the midweek offerings. It seems to me that even though they want to push midweeks, people still need weekends somehow combined in these offers to make them more attractive.
Anyway I'm pretty over the issue, my thoughts have been well telegraphed over the last year, it's clear what Buller management thinks of the resilience of its regular, locked-in customers & future treatment is likely to be as such, and it's fair to say the feelings are mutual.Last edited by a moderator:
Stratus said:
I laughed
I have a Thredbo/Perisher pass for basically the same price as Buller's pass and full payment not due until May 2013.
Like CM - I am not going to rant anymore, the issue is done and Buller don't care
The only thing I miss at Buller is Kofler's
MEHLast edited by a moderator:
Season is over now, and still no news.
Studying Visitor Days Studying Visitor days is quite an interesting affair.
Suprisingly, Buller got quite a lot of visitors (476K) considering their season compared to Hotham (447K). Though what the quality and the activities of those visitors do we don't have access to. Buller still had more Visitor Days than Hotham but Hotham crossed quite a large gap to get quite close. What's even just as interesting that Hotham's numbers have been growing at an annualised rate of 2.3%pa whereas Buller hasn't grown much at all.
Secondly, Buller is a moody one with really wild swings in Visitor Days whereas Hotham is much more stable. This isn't surprising though when we think about what season passes really are, essentially futures contracts, it turns the notion on it's head that futures are the domain of seasonally variable business'.
Management at BSL have much to think about.
Check out Aussieskier for more indepth detail.Last edited by a moderator:
I can't help but feel BSL has already looked at this stuff in more detail then we ever can or will.mx_boarder said:
If there is one thing I have learnt, never assume too much.
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