Killington, Vermont, January 20-21 Snowbird, Utah, February 10-12

NSAA 2015 Winter Conferences & Tradeshows

Register online at NSAA.org

Killington and Snowbird Sponsors

Active Network – The Integrated Platform for Growing Revenue and Loyalty

AXESS – RFID for North American Resorts

CIL – Explosive Experts

Doppelmayr – Upholding a Tradition of Excellence for 120 Years

Liftopia – #1 in Online Lift Ticket Sales

Leitner-Poma of America – We Move People

Mountain Uniforms – Custom Built for the Industry

PistenBully – The Number One Around the Globe

PRINOTH – For Perfect Pistes

TechnoAlpin USA – From Finding the Water to Delivering the Snow

Wells Fargo – A Diversified Financial Services Company

Support those who support the industry.

Our generous sponsors provide funds to be reinvested back into

educational programs that benefit the entire industry.

Who Should Attend

The NSAA Winter Conferences and Tradeshows are designed to provide

invaluable industry education and increase the knowledge, skills, and abilities

of ski area personnel. Front line staff, supervisors, department managers, and

department directors will find sessions related to the day-to-day operation of

a ski area and insights into the future of the industry. The NSAA Winter shows

give you and your teams a great opportunity to talk to and learn from your

peers, check out the latest from industry suppliers, and bring new ideas back

to your area.

KILLINGTONSchedule at a Glance

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

7:30am - 5:30pm ..........................NSAA Registration Open

8:00am - 1:30pm ...........................Snowmaking Demonstrations

8:00am - 3:00pm .............................PhatCat Challenge & Grooming Demonstrations

11:00am - 1:15pm ................................Arrival Day Programs

12:00pm - 4:30pm ...........................Exhibitor Set-up

1:30pm - 2:45pm ...............................Sessions

3:00pm - 4:15pm ...............................Sessions

4:15pm - 5:00pm ...............................PhatCat Awards

5:00pm - 7:30pm ..............................Welcome Reception in Tradeshow Hall

Wednesday, January 21, 2015

7:30am - 2:00pm ..............................NSAA Registration Open

8:00am - 10:30am ...........................First Tracks & Hosted Breakfast

9:15am - 10:15am ...............................Sessions

10:30am - 11:30am ..........................Sessions

11:30am - 1:30pm ...............................Lunch in Tradeshow Hall

1:30pm - 2:45pm ...............................Sessions

Tuesday, February 10, 2015

7:30am - 5:30pm ...............................NSAA Registration Open

10:30am - 12:45pm ..........................Arrival Day Programs

11:00am - 3:00pm .............................Grooming Demonstrations

12:00pm - 4:30pm ........................Exhibitor Set-up

1:00pm - 2:15pm ............................Sessions

2:30pm - 3:45pm ..............................Sessions

4:00pm - 5:15pm ...............................Sessions

5:00pm - 7:30pm ..............................Welcome Reception in Tradeshow Hall

Wednesday, February 11, 2015

7:00am - 11:00am .......................... First Tracks & Hosted Breakfast at Snowbird

7:30am - 5:00pm .......................... NSAA Registration Open

11:00am - 12:00pm ........................... Sessions

11:30am - 1:30pm ........................... Lunch in Tradeshow Hall

1:30pm - 2:45pm ........................... Sessions

3:00pm - 4:15pm ............................... Sessions

5:00pm - 7:30pm .............................. Cocktail Reception in Tradeshow Hall

Thursday, February 12, 2015

7:30am .....................................................First Tracks at Alta

SNOWBIRDSchedule at a Glance

Data Driven Pricing in eCommerceEvan Reece, Co-Founder and CEO, Liftopia

Kate Fenwick, Head of Partner Strategy, Liftopia

u Killington, 12:15 – 1:15 p.m.

u Snowbird, 11:45 a.m. – 12:45 p.m. Liftopia will share industry benchmarks on pricing and eCommerce across hundreds of resorts on the Liftopia platform. Liftopia will showcase how data driven pricing decisions are the primary drivers of success in any eCommerce business—presenting case studies that are actionable for ski areas of any size.

RTP|ONE Customer SessionSteve Vincent, Senior Manager, Active Network

u Killington, 11 a.m. – 12 p.m.

u Snowbird, 10:30 – 11:30 a.m.

ACTIVE Network invites all RTP|ONE customers to join us for this product session. Discover the key changes and initiatives that took place in 2014, gain insights on the RTP|ONE and LivePass product roadmaps for 2015, and get to know how ACTIVE Network partners with you to drive participation and increase revenues.

AXESS – Exceed Your Guest’s Expectations by Utilizing RFIDLarry Williams, President, AXESS North America

u Snowbird, 11:45 a.m. – 12:45 p.m.

The smart phone generation expects convenience—give it to them! RFID is convenient for both the guest and the resort while offering accountability and profitability. This will be an informal discussion for potential and existing AXESS customers to discuss insights earned from the “I want it now, and with ease” customer base.

Save Energy, Labor, and Impress your GuestsRobin Smith, President, TechnoAlpin USA Inc.

u Killington, 12:15 – 1:15 p.m.

u Snowbird, 10:30 – 11:30 a.m.

You can actually lower your energy, labor, and snow-making costs, and we have real numbers from more than a dozen real resorts to illustrate that point. We also will show you a road map of how to go beyond where they left off. Now the data will empower you to join the lowest cost, most efficient snowmakers in North America.

PistenBully 400 ParkProJosh Nelson, New England Regional Sales

Jeb Ellermeyer, Sierra Regional Sales

u Killington, 11 a.m. – 12 p.m.

u Snowbird, 10:30 – 11:30 a.m.

Parks constitute a whole different set of tasks to the slopes. In collaboration with the best park builders from the USA, Canada, and Europe, we have created a new machine that is precisely tailored to their needs and wishes. The PistenBully team invites you to join us and learn about this exciting new addition to our product lineup.

Evolution on the Snow: PRINOTH’s next generation is here…The PRINOTH Team

u Killington, 12:15 – 1:15 p.m.

u Snowbird, 11:45 a.m. – 12:45 p.m.

Come and see the future of park and grooming tech-nologies with the PRINOTH team.

Arrival Day ProgramsSponsors providing insights and expertise on new products and services.

These programs will take place at Killington on January 20 from 11 a.m. to 1:15 p.m., and at Snowbird on

February 10 from 10:35 a.m. to 12:45 p.m.

Who Owns the First Timer?

The industry remains focused on creating great experiences that inspire guests to come back time and again. Conversion takes much more than the ability to make a perfect turn and the responsi-bility for conversion goes well beyond just the ski and snowboard school. Every person in every department at your resort shares in the responsibility for helping new skiers and riders feel like they are welcome and want to come back. This session will highlight ways resorts are creating cultures of conversion to focus their entire operation on bringing guests back.

Business Continuity Plans — What’s Really Involved

Chances are you have a contingency plan for a lift breakdown and fire evacuation, but do you have a plan in the event of a catastrophic storm, or even a mudslide, that knocks out power and internet for days? How about your response to a major data breach or a forest fire? Beyond simply dealing with the immediate emergency, a crisis management plan should also be considered a business continuity plan. This two-part series will give you the tools to develop your own comprehensive plan. From evacuations to communications, from development to testing, and from cooperation to coordination, a formal response plan will give you peace of mind, knowing you’re prepared for come what may.

AGENDAKillington + SnowbirdPlease note: sessions are subject to change.

The Beginner Conversion DashboardNate Fristoe, RRC Associates

As an industry, we've been holding our ground based on increasing frequency from our existing participants and relying on the conversion of new skiers and riders to become core participants. Now, by tracking new skiers and riders over time, the Beginner Conversion Dashboard will be able to truly tell us what works and doesn't work in our conversion efforts, and why these efforts are effective. A cooperative initiative between NSAA and RRC, the dashboard will provide benchmarks for conversion, frequency, migration patterns, and feedback from real first-time skiers and riders. This session will discuss the details of this program, and provide early insights into the data and effectiveness of area programs.

Conversion Best Practices The NSAA Conversion Cookbook provides 10 strategies to convert new skiers and riders into long-term participants. This session will focus on best practices from successful areas using these strategies to increase the retention and conversion of first-time skiers and riders. Learn what other areas are doing—beyond just showing people how to ski and ride—to get their newly minted skiers and riders to come back, bring their friends, and help increase ski area revenues.

Electronic Incident Reporting — The Future Is Here

Technology has become ubiquitous across the entire resort operation, including the capture and tracking of information related to incidents. Areas across the US are using tablets and smartphones to record data in their incident investigations and in the patrol room, with tremendous advantages including consistency, accuracy, and legibility. But there are also possible downsides, not the least of which is discoverability. This session will focus on the pluses and minuses you should consider as you bring technology into your risk management operation.

AGENDA

AGENDAKillington + Snowbird

Freestyle Terrain Resources Update – indoor and on-snow sessions NSAA’s freestyle terrain resources have recently been updated with new materials. Get the inside scoop on the new content and how to implement these resources into your daily park operations. With a new jump measurement tool and jump design considerations, this session will give your park crew direct guidance on how to measure and track your jump features over the season. This session will lead into an on-snow session that will give participants practice utilizing the jump measurement tool and discussion regarding the jump design considerations.

Building on the information from the indoor session, participants will go on-snow to practice using the new jump measurement tool, and discuss its application over the season and in accident inves-tigations. Additionally, the jump design considerations will be discussed using the park features as examples.

The New Minimum Wage: Understanding the Key Exemptions for Ski Areas Under FLSA Whether on US Forest Service land or private land, ski areas need to understand the key exemptions that protect ski areas from federal minimum wage regulations. This session will focus on how ski areas can use two key exemptions under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and discuss oper-ational changes areas may consider to minimize applicability of the executive order. Our expert panel will speak to the Department of Labor’s (DOL) new rules on this higher minimum wage, and how the US Forest Service will be interpreting these exemptions.

AGENDAOperational Considerations of Terrain — Based Learning™Joe Hession, Snow Operating

Adopting a terrain-based approach to teaching skiing and riding requires more than tweaking your school’s teaching progression and pushing snow into a pile. Utilizing specially designed snow features in your beginner area can help create a great first-time experience and improve your reten-tion of new skiers and riders. If you have been considering including snow features in your learn-to programs, this session will help you plan and budget for the staffing, design, construction, and maintenance of your new and improved beginner area.

Summer Evacuation- It’s Just Not The Same

Summer operations come with their own unique challenges and operational issues. Lift evacuation is becoming just one component of your summer risk management plan. Insuring the safety of your guests and staff is only the beginning while accessing difficult terrain and elevated guests. With chal-lenge courses, zip lines and other attractions being offered, a new set of unique challenges will be encountered. Our panelists will discuss initial solutions and procedures to address these challenges. Insuring the safety of your guests and staff is only the beginning while accessing difficult terrain and elevated guests.

Your Risks and Exposures From Technology and Social Media

As mobile devices, GoPros, video sharing sites, and all manner of social media applications have proliferated, so too have the risks and exposures for ski resorts. Indeed, few commercial businesses have so many different users and devices collecting daily footage as ski areas. We will address some of the resort-specific pitfalls stemming from this technological revolution — from both employees and guests — and how resorts can minimize these risks, discuss how the social media revolution is impacting investigations, claims, and lawsuits at ski areas, and analyze what tools and protocols ski areas can implement to reduce the risks.

How Drone Technology Will Change Resort Operations

Unmanned aerial drone technology is rapidly becoming an affordable tool with untold applica-tions impacting all aspects of resort operations beyond just marketing. Aerial drone experts and engineers, along with ski area personnel, will discuss the technological promise (and limitations) of drones – including thermal heat imaging, gauging snow depths, infrastructure inspections, map-ping, delivery systems, and even aerial avalanche transceivers. Covering the latest FAA regulations, training and certification issues, and risk management considerations, this session will also talk about where the technology is headed.

Succession PlanningLaura Moriarty, Tahoe Training Partners

Succession planning is a subject that is receiving a lot of attention these days as employees are retiring or finding work at other areas. Much more than just hiring a replacement, succession planning entails everything from identifying leaders and developing their talents to finding the right fit and motivating your top performers to stay. Join our human resources experts to learn about the key components of a thorough succession plan that starts from the ground up.

Process Cycle Efficiency – The Secret Sauce to Increase ValueJoe Hession, Snow Operating

The secret to increasing perceived value doesn’t always lie in discounts or lower prices. Adding value at the right time can often make the difference in a guest’s perception of his or her experience. Process Cycle Efficiency (PCE) is a tangible tool you can use to evaluate and improve every experience your visitors have at your resort. Joe Hession, CEO of Snow Operating and Six Sigma Blackbelt, is an expert in PCE and will guide you through the steps to maximize the time and value for your guests.

AGENDAKillington + Snowbird

Snowbird Only

Every Drop Matters: Water In the Ski IndustryBecky Fedak, Brendle Group

Water is a scarce commodity in the West, and getting scarcer every day. Yet it’s also essential to ski area operations, including snowmaking, lodging, and other operational uses—so essential that ski areas must take a hard look at the risks to adequate future water supply and opportunities to manage water wisely. Becky Fedak, water practice leader for Brendle Group, will share the latest trends and best practices in water planning and climate-proofing as they relate to ski areas, including conservation activities, climate change mitigation and adaptation planning, watershed services and improvements, and the new Net Zero Water initiative.

Understanding and Leveraging the Customer Engagement Cycle Deb Collins, C Squared Company

Just as with any product or service, there is a life cycle associated with your customers. Deb Collins, principal with C-Squared, will share details about this life cycle and how you can leverage the different phases of the customer engagement cycle. From first creating awareness to converting your customers into brand advocates, understanding the customer engagement cycle will give you more tools to increase the effectiveness of your marketing message.

Killington Only

The Search Engine: Where The Path to Your Resort BeginsDave Gibson, Propeller Media Works

About 68% of vacationers begin their research online, and 60% rely on search engines to find their destination. In this session we will go over current search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC) fundamentals, and share tips for driving not just more but better traffic to your site. Whether you’re doing this work internally or outsourcing, this session will cover the need-to-know aspects of search, and provide you with a better understanding of how to reach people who are looking for exactly what you have to offer.

Making The Switch – Leveraging the Sun in the East

With energy costs constantly fluctuating, ski areas need to find ways to manage costs and provide the power needed to get open and operate. Solar power is increasingly affordable with shorter ROI periods than ever before, and has obvious climate benefits as a renewable energy source. Exploring the Mt. Abram and other areas solar programs, this session will give attendees insights into the decision-making process, lessons learned, and short-term results of these innovative sustainability initiatives.

AGENDA

Killington

Tuesday, January 20

Snowmaking Demonstrations

8:00am – 1:30pm

PhatCat Challenge & Grooming

Demonstrations

8:00am – 3:00pm

Wednesday, January 21

First Tracks & Breakfast

8:00am – 10:00am

SESSIONSOn-Snow

Snowbird/Alta

Tuesday, February 10

Grooming Demonstrations

11:00am – 3:00pm

Snowbird & Alta First TracksWednesday, February 11

Snowbird

7:30am – 11:00am

Thursday, February 12

Alta

7:30am – 11:00am

The Tradeshow provides the opportunity for resort operators to view and discuss

the latest products and services from suppliers. The Tradeshow is always the

focal point of new information and leading technologies.

u Advertising, Marketing, Public Relations & Research

u Architectural Design & Resort Planning

u Communications Systems

u Computer Systems, Hardware & Software

u Consulting Services

u Consumer Equipment/Rental Manufacturers

u Education/Training Services

u Electrical/Mechanical Products & Services

u Engineering & Design Services

u Equipment Brokerage & Leasing

u Facility Products & Services

u Fences, Nets, Barriers

u Financial Services

u Floor/Deck Coverings & Surfaces

u Food & Beverage Equipment, Supplies & Services

u Human Resource Services

u Insurance

u Lift Components, Drives, Manufacturers,

Supplies & Services

u Maps, Trail Guides, Brochures

u Photo ID Equipment, Supplies & Services

u Publications

u Racing and Competition Supplies,

Instructional Programs

u Indoor/Outdoor Rack Systems

u Safety Products & Equipment

u Security Lockers & Systems

u Signs – Informational, Mountain Advertising

& Trail Marking

u Ski Report/Weather Services

u Ski & Snowboard Manufacturers

u Snowgrooming Equipment, Manufacturers,

Parts & Service

u Snowmaking Components, Design, Products,

Services & Systems

u Summer Recreation Equipment & Services

u Ticketing Systems, Supplies & Software

u Travel Services

u Uniform Design & Sales

u Wire Rope Sales & Service

Tradeshow

East Lodging Information Killington Grand Resort Hotel

For reservations please call

800-282-9955 and mention NSAA

Lodging reservations deadline: December 15, 2014

East Registration Information

on or before 1/19/15 after 1/19/15

Ski Area Member $180 $200

One Day Only $125 $125

Trade Show Only $50 $50

Non-member $350 $400

West Lodging InformationSnowbird Ski & Summer Resort

For reservations please call

800-453-3000 and mention NSAA

Lodging reservations deadline: December 19, 2014

West Registration Information

on or before 1/30/15 after 1/30/15

Ski Area Member $225 $250

One Day Only $150 $150

Trade Show Only $50 $50

Non-member $350 $400

Ski Area Member Registration Includes:

u Your choice of multiple sessions

u Tours and technical workshops

u Access to tradeshow hall

u Drink tickets for receptions

u Tours and complimentary skiing throughout the conference

To receive your complimentary lift pass you must register for the conference and sign in at the NSAA

registration desk.

One Day Only Registration Includes:

Sessions, trade show, a reception, and a one-day lift pass

Trade Show Only Registration Includes:

Admittance to trade show and participation in the on-hill demonstrations. Does not include lift pass.

Registration:

Online: www.nsaa.org

Email: nsaa@nsaa.org

Mail: NSAA

133 S. Van Gordon Street

Suite 300

Lakewood, CO 80228

*All registration require pre-payment, online/email/scan require credit card payment.

NSAA reserves the right to limit attendance to ski resort personnel only. Session content and times

may vary.

For complete details go to www.nsaa.org.

Cancellation Policy:

Refunds will be handled on a case-by-case basis and must be requested in writing no later than 5 business

days after the conference.

NSAA Winter Conferences & TradeshowsSKI AREA REGISTRATION & LODGING

Eastern Conference - Killington, VTJanuary 20-21, 2015

Western Conference - Snowbird, UtahFebruary 10-12, 2015

REGISTRATION FORM

Name

Title

Ski Area

Address

City State Zip

Phone/Fax

Email

Additional people from the same area (duplicate this form if necessary)

Name

Title

Email

Name

Title

Email

Name

Title

Email

Name

Title

Email

Name

Title

Email

Name

Title

Email

Payment Method n Check n Visa n MC n Amex

Card # Exp Date

Name on Card

Signature

Eastern Conference Killington, VTJanuary 20-21, 2015

Western Conference Snowbird, UtahFebruary 10-12, 2015

Please Indicate your participation by filling in the appropriate fee in each

box. (duplicate this form if necessary)

$

$

$

$

$

$

$

$

Registration Fee

Registration Fee

Registration Fee

Registration Fee

Registration Fee

Registration Fee

Registration Fee

TOTAL PAYMENT

All registrations require pre-payment; online/email/scan registrations require credit card payment.Refunds will be handled on a case-by-case basis and must be requested in writing no later than 5 business days after the event.

Natio

nal S

ki A

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Ass

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133

S. V

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., St

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CO

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