When it came time to decide on what conference to attend this year, Snowcial was the one I really wanted to have happen. Mainly because it brings together many of the ski resorts and marketers whose passions lie in skiing and snowboarding. Not only that, Snowcial brings in incredible guest speakers that make you think outside the box and try to become better snow marketers.
This was technically my third year of attending Snowcial but my first year of attending the full conference and days on snow. I arrived Wednesday in time for the welcome orientation and poker game. Thursday we hit the slopes in the morning to get in our laps before attending the afternoon presentations.
It was a warm sunny day on the mountain. We cruised around the groomers getting the fun fast laps in before heading over to the pipe for morning pipe laps.
I spent the day lapping with old and new friends. Lars, Mike from Transworld, Sonny and JP. We had a good crew, hauled and had fun.
For the afternoon, it was time to head inside for the big list of speakers for the afternoon. We had David Armano from Edelman Digital, Dean Eckels from Facebook, Chris Heuer from Deloitte Digital, Stephanie Naegeli from Nestle, Ian Swinson from Salesforce.com and Paul Crandell from GoPro.
Each of the speakers gave amazing insight into their roles, social media, marketing and influences. It was a busy afternoon on the snowcial hashtag for quotes and great ideas flowing.
In the evening, it was time for the lightning round presentations. I had signed up to be a part of it this year and was pretty nervous going into it since I was going to “wing it.” Here was the view from the stage with the lights on you and the audience watching ready to cheer or jeer. In the end, I was happy to go outside of my comfort zone and speak from what I know…which was definitely risky.
Towards the beginning of the lightning round, we cracked open PBR’s, raised our beers and people said words about Chris Rudolph. Chris was at Snowcial last year and made an impact on many of the people. Some didn’t know he had passed away till that night.