[Music]
[Applause]
tonight I wanted to talk about Gapers
you may know them as Jerry’s Joey’s
newbies punters if you ski or snowboard
you know what I’m talking about if you
don’t let me help you help you out you
can spot them look for the guy with his
goggles on upside down or look for the
snowboarder in the mossy oak camo jacket
or look for that skier with the skinny
skis and the rear entry boots and all
those lifts tickets and all the place
they’ve skied in the past 20 years since
they bought that jacket you know the the
term gaper comes from the gap it’s that
gap between your goggles and your helmet
you know if you’re a skier or
snowboarder you know you’re you you
don’t want a gap there you don’t want
that gaper gap this guy this guy is a
textbook gamer
now I have a confession to make I used
to be a caper check out my sweet one
piece this was the 80s but that was not
in styled in either neither were the
glasses my buddy he’s got you can see
he’s got jeans he’s got Gators I think
we use a whole can of Scotchgard on
those jeans so what we used to call
Kansas ski pants here’s the thing about
Gapers though is we need them because we
live in a ski town it’s a ski community
and skiing and snowboarding have a lot
of challenges it’s a very daunting sport
to learn it’s expensive it’s there’s a
lot of gear there’s a lot of stuff to
figure out
as I mentioned it’s expensive there
they’re a lot of the skiers who try it
for the first time don’t ever come back
and even more never even try and it’s
one of the reasons that ski visitation
has been fairly flat for really the past
40 years this is a chart that shows
annual skier visits in the US from 1978
until last year a skier visit is one ski
or skiing one day so if you have a
season pass and you ski 20 days you
added 20 to this chart it’s been sort of
floating for the past several years
between 50 and 60 million annual
visitors the typical skier skiing four
and a half to five times a year so that
means about 13 million
skiers and snowboarders in the US for
some perspective Disney World does 40
million visitors annually and you know
at the same time this forty years the US
population has grown by 40 percent one
of the bright spots over the past couple
decades of it has been snowboarding you
know snowboarding actually brought in a
lot of new participants into the sport
and the sort of the peak years and
snowboarding coincide with the peak
years and skier visitation so if they at
its peak snowboarding brought in about
18 million annual visitors so close to a
third of the of the total of visitation
it’s declined a bit since then it’s down
to more around 13 million
snowboarding the rest skiing the good
news is snowboarding brought in a lot of
new technologies brought in wider skis
skiers ski manufacturers saw that
snowboards were easier to turn easier to
get through some of the crud snow and so
they started adopting some of those
technologies and that’s why you have
deep sight cuts and wide skis rocker
skis all these things that that skiing
borrowed from snowboarding just like
snowboarding borrowed a lot of
technology from skiing early on
unfortunately snowboarding has not been
able to fend off some of the demographic
waves that are really impacting the
sport and really impacting potentially a
lot of our mountain communities this is
ski or visitation for those 50 and older
interestingly in the past ten years has
grown by about thirty percent that’s not
because older people are taking up
skiing and snowboarding it’s just
because the skiing and snowboarding
population is getting older during the
same period if you look at those 25 to
54 there’s actually been a steady
decline the most troubling thing though
is if you look at 25 and under 25 and
under that demographic has lost 30% of
its visitation over the past 10 years so
young people are not taking up the sport
and anywhere near the rate that their
predecessors did and what’s to blame for
this well it’s snapchat it’s video games
it’s Facebook its mobile phones it’s 358
channels on the TV and all the other
entertainment options that are out there
this isn’t dissimilar from a lot of
other act or outdoor activities
unfortunately that’s not the worst news
for the industry because there’s one
fight that we’re fighting against that
is going to take everything we can to
turn it back and that’s climate change a
study came out last year says that here
in the Northeast our winners by 2050
less than 30 years from now are going to
be reduced by about half now for a ski
area
Christmas is a very critical period it’s
your highest demand period as we all
know when we tried to go to the grocery
store here in Stowe during Christmas
period there are a lot of people in town
they’re paying a premium if we lose that
winter that Christmas period that’s a
big problem for for ski resorts and we
can measure the impact of of climate
change now we can measure it in reduce
snowfall reduced snowpack elevated
temperatures and a shrinking season in
the Alps the signs are everywhere
take this literal sign for example this
is what skiers saw last year in crowns
Montana and Switzerland a lot of the
infrastructure in the Alps is it’s built
on glaciers and the glaciers are melting
so it’s literally melting away
underneath the infrastructure now here’s
an interesting point you’ve heard a lot
from the current administration about
saving jobs in coal the coal industry
employs about 75,000 people in this
country the ski industry employs about
76,000 that doesn’t even account for
hotels shops restaurants all the other
things all the other businesses in our
mountain communities that make our
economies thrive protect our winters
which is an organization of climate
advocates started by skiers and
snowboarders they estimate that the the
total halo effect of the industry is
about 120,000 jobs I mean you can look
at this theater right here and see what
what skiing brings to a community this
theater would not exist if it didn’t
live at the bottom of a ski hill so it’s
really important that we try to
diversify our communities that’s that’s
probably one of the most important
things that we can do and out from a
tourism perspective we’ve done that
pretty well in this community and a lot
of ski communities have as well we’ve
built a year-round tourism
infrastructure and a real year-round
tourism community that is viable in the
summer the winter the fall we have spas
we have zip lines we have all sorts of
activities that you know it’s sort of
irrelevant what season you’re here and
that’s probably the most important thing
that we can do in our communities to
fight off the threats of that are facing
our industry
but there’s also one small thing that
each and every one of us can do let’s be
nice to a caper I mean these people are
coming into our community they’re
passionate about what they’re doing just
like we’re passionate about it so if
you’re out there and you see them don’t
pull out your camera and take a picture
and post it on Jerry of the day talk to
welcome them you know we need them as
allies hey if you’re a snowboarder hang
out with a skier your skier hang out
with the snowboarder you know we’re all
in this together we have to have allies
in our fight against climate change we
need to bring people into our
communities so if I leave you with one
message it’s be nice to the gamer thank you
[Applause]
tonight I wanted to talk about Gapers
you may know them as Jerry’s Joey’s
newbies punters if you ski or snowboard
you know what I’m talking about if you
don’t let me help you help you out you
can spot them look for the guy with his
goggles on upside down or look for the
snowboarder in the mossy oak camo jacket
or look for that skier with the skinny
skis and the rear entry boots and all
those lifts tickets and all the place
they’ve skied in the past 20 years since
they bought that jacket you know the the
term gaper comes from the gap it’s that
gap between your goggles and your helmet
you know if you’re a skier or
snowboarder you know you’re you you
don’t want a gap there you don’t want
that gaper gap this guy this guy is a
textbook gamer
now I have a confession to make I used
to be a caper check out my sweet one
piece this was the 80s but that was not
in styled in either neither were the
glasses my buddy he’s got you can see
he’s got jeans he’s got Gators I think
we use a whole can of Scotchgard on
those jeans so what we used to call
Kansas ski pants here’s the thing about
Gapers though is we need them because we
live in a ski town it’s a ski community
and skiing and snowboarding have a lot
of challenges it’s a very daunting sport
to learn it’s expensive it’s there’s a
lot of gear there’s a lot of stuff to
figure out
as I mentioned it’s expensive there
they’re a lot of the skiers who try it
for the first time don’t ever come back
and even more never even try and it’s
one of the reasons that ski visitation
has been fairly flat for really the past
40 years this is a chart that shows
annual skier visits in the US from 1978
until last year a skier visit is one ski
or skiing one day so if you have a
season pass and you ski 20 days you
added 20 to this chart it’s been sort of
floating for the past several years
between 50 and 60 million annual
visitors the typical skier skiing four
and a half to five times a year so that
means about 13 million
skiers and snowboarders in the US for
some perspective Disney World does 40
million visitors annually and you know
at the same time this forty years the US
population has grown by 40 percent one
of the bright spots over the past couple
decades of it has been snowboarding you
know snowboarding actually brought in a
lot of new participants into the sport
and the sort of the peak years and
snowboarding coincide with the peak
years and skier visitation so if they at
its peak snowboarding brought in about
18 million annual visitors so close to a
third of the of the total of visitation
it’s declined a bit since then it’s down
to more around 13 million
snowboarding the rest skiing the good
news is snowboarding brought in a lot of
new technologies brought in wider skis
skiers ski manufacturers saw that
snowboards were easier to turn easier to
get through some of the crud snow and so
they started adopting some of those
technologies and that’s why you have
deep sight cuts and wide skis rocker
skis all these things that that skiing
borrowed from snowboarding just like
snowboarding borrowed a lot of
technology from skiing early on
unfortunately snowboarding has not been
able to fend off some of the demographic
waves that are really impacting the
sport and really impacting potentially a
lot of our mountain communities this is
ski or visitation for those 50 and older
interestingly in the past ten years has
grown by about thirty percent that’s not
because older people are taking up
skiing and snowboarding it’s just
because the skiing and snowboarding
population is getting older during the
same period if you look at those 25 to
54 there’s actually been a steady
decline the most troubling thing though
is if you look at 25 and under 25 and
under that demographic has lost 30% of
its visitation over the past 10 years so
young people are not taking up the sport
and anywhere near the rate that their
predecessors did and what’s to blame for
this well it’s snapchat it’s video games
it’s Facebook its mobile phones it’s 358
channels on the TV and all the other
entertainment options that are out there
this isn’t dissimilar from a lot of
other act or outdoor activities
unfortunately that’s not the worst news
for the industry because there’s one
fight that we’re fighting against that
is going to take everything we can to
turn it back and that’s climate change a
study came out last year says that here
in the Northeast our winners by 2050
less than 30 years from now are going to
be reduced by about half now for a ski
area
Christmas is a very critical period it’s
your highest demand period as we all
know when we tried to go to the grocery
store here in Stowe during Christmas
period there are a lot of people in town
they’re paying a premium if we lose that
winter that Christmas period that’s a
big problem for for ski resorts and we
can measure the impact of of climate
change now we can measure it in reduce
snowfall reduced snowpack elevated
temperatures and a shrinking season in
the Alps the signs are everywhere
take this literal sign for example this
is what skiers saw last year in crowns
Montana and Switzerland a lot of the
infrastructure in the Alps is it’s built
on glaciers and the glaciers are melting
so it’s literally melting away
underneath the infrastructure now here’s
an interesting point you’ve heard a lot
from the current administration about
saving jobs in coal the coal industry
employs about 75,000 people in this
country the ski industry employs about
76,000 that doesn’t even account for
hotels shops restaurants all the other
things all the other businesses in our
mountain communities that make our
economies thrive protect our winters
which is an organization of climate
advocates started by skiers and
snowboarders they estimate that the the
total halo effect of the industry is
about 120,000 jobs I mean you can look
at this theater right here and see what
what skiing brings to a community this
theater would not exist if it didn’t
live at the bottom of a ski hill so it’s
really important that we try to
diversify our communities that’s that’s
probably one of the most important
things that we can do and out from a
tourism perspective we’ve done that
pretty well in this community and a lot
of ski communities have as well we’ve
built a year-round tourism
infrastructure and a real year-round
tourism community that is viable in the
summer the winter the fall we have spas
we have zip lines we have all sorts of
activities that you know it’s sort of
irrelevant what season you’re here and
that’s probably the most important thing
that we can do in our communities to
fight off the threats of that are facing
our industry
but there’s also one small thing that
each and every one of us can do let’s be
nice to a caper I mean these people are
coming into our community they’re
passionate about what they’re doing just
like we’re passionate about it so if
you’re out there and you see them don’t
pull out your camera and take a picture
and post it on Jerry of the day talk to
welcome them you know we need them as
allies hey if you’re a snowboarder hang
out with a skier your skier hang out
with the snowboarder you know we’re all
in this together we have to have allies
in our fight against climate change we
need to bring people into our
communities so if I leave you with one
message it’s be nice to the gamer thank you
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