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| Story: Steve Rodriguez Photos: Danika Prochazka & Steve Rodriguez |
Ski Dazzle, the big Los Angeles ski and snowboard show now in its 50th year, is here again. Every year, the show just seems to get worse and worse. We went on Thursday, the opening day to see if the trend is continuing.
There's two options to buy tickets to the show, which cost $20 per adult, either in person when you get there, or online via the Ski Dazzle site. Buying online would seem the more convenient route, till you see that they charge an additional $1.75 per ticket, so buying tickets at the show was not only cheaper, but once we arrived at the convention center, it was clear that there was absolutely no advantage to buying online at. The box office had no lines, we walked right up and bought tickets. There was a line to enter the show, which was split in two, one for online tickets and one for regular tickets, and the regular ticket line moved faster.
The "Free Lift Ticket" is the huge draw for many attending the show, yet there are always so many restrictions on this "free" lift ticket. In the past years, it been a Snow Summit/Bear offer, where depending on the date, you can get a restricted free lift ticket (valid only early season or late slush and dirt season), a 2-1 offer, or a free lesson deal. This year Mt Baldy, Snow Valley, Mt High, and Brian Head are added to the offer.
So not a bad deal this year, because you get a variety of options. One thing that Ski Dazzle has got wise to is the reselling and sharing of their "Free Lift Ticket" offers. Usually throughout the season, you can find the Ski Dazzle "Free Lift Tickets" being sold on Craigslist, especially near the end of the season when all those who never got a chance to use them are trying to unload them. Then there's some people like us, who have passes already and usually flow the "Free Lift Ticket" to a buddy who doesn't. Well, Ski Dazzle has made it difficult to do any of that this year, you need to show your ID when you get your "Free Lift Ticket" voucher at the booth and again when you go to the resort to redeem it.
All the usual resorts have booths set up, where you can grab their brochures, trail maps, posters, and stickers. A couple like Bear Mtn and Snow Summit have some cool swag items. Most are offing some type of lift ticket or season pass deal, and of course the "Enter to win_____" drawings.
Mt High charges $2 to spin their prize wheel, so not many were giving it a go. It was free to spin the Snow Valley prize wheel, in which one of the prizes was a free lift ticket.
I gave it a spin and won a free lift ticket. The Snow Valley rep handed me a voucher for a free Mon-Fri non-holiday lift ticket, good till the end of the season.
Then the two guys in line behind me each hit the same mark on their spins and won lift tickets as well. Pretty cool to see two buddies each win a prize like that one after the other.
After the resorts, the ski and board shops took up a huge portion of the show floor, offering deals on everything from boards and skis to socks and gloves. Some deals were good, some were not so great.
Jack's, Val-Surf, Value Sports, all the regular shops have booths. Val-Surf was constantly one of the busiest, they always had a line to get in. For the most part, they were all staffed with knowledgeable and helpful employees.
And then there is Zumiez
Zumiez, the mall chain store that lots of true snowboarders and skaters just hate. Walking into the Zumiez area is like walking into a pit of ultra hipster pushy used car salesmen that had a just finished the MTV/ESPN snowboard lingo home course. "Awesome hat, alright man!" one yells over to me as another ask me what I need. "I have this board, it has great flex" another tells us when we touch a board on their rack. All those web complaints about how Zumiez stores have non-snowboarding employees who know nothing about the gear trying way too hard make you buy things also holds true for the ones at the shows. It's cool when store employees offer to help you, but these Zumiez employees like to get into your face and practically demand you buy something. Another Zumiez guy tells us, "You're not going to buy anything?! You're just taking pictures? I guess that's cool. We got some great...." as we walk away from him.
One minute this guy is browsing the the snowboards:
The next minute, two Zumies employees tag team him and tell him what he needs to buy:
The Bear Mtn Vert Ramp is unfortunately placed next to Zumiez, so I can just see the Zumiez sales gang go after people that just want to watch the skate and BMX demos. "Hey dude! Wow, wasn't that a totally awesome aerial helicopter one foot air that guy just did?! His ampitude is gnar! Come check out this snowboard that will go killer with the dope belt you are wearing. You gotta buy this board, dude!"
The other big thing at the show is the Ski & Snowboard swap sale section. according to their website:
"
Sale Area is a $6 Million Dollar
Sale where you and your entire family can
save hundreds of dollars on current and past
season gear provided by your local retailers
and other industry vendors."
So they say you will save hundreds of dollars, but on a handful of random items we looked at, they actually cost more.
This DC jacket for example. It's a DC Spectrum jacket, the original DC price tag of $170 is on it, the special Ski Dazzle sale tag says $127.99. It sells for $110 on Amazon. Here's the link:
DC Men's Spectrum Snowboard Jacket
And these brightly colored DC pants? Gotta figure a pair of pants this colorful in the "Clearance" section of the sale would be discounted pretty heavily, right?
The Ski Dazzle clearance sale tag says $169.99. They sell for just $112.95 on Amazon and other snowboard sites.
While some items may have been good deals, there were a lot that were not. You can end up overpaying for a lot of stuff at Ski Dazzle, use your phone and do a quick Google search on the items you're looking at, it will save you a good amount of cash. And remember, when you buy at the Ski Dazzle Sale, all sales are final.
Other things going on at the show were free ski lessons by Snow summit on their carpet slope, a free rock climbing wall, an artificial ice rink, a cool little kids area set up by Burton, and some industry people giving lectures over in the Mammoth area.
Ski Dazzle is worth checking out, if you know you are able to use the "Free Lift Ticket" offers. If you're going looking for a great deal on gear, it's not really worth it, especially after you figure in gas and parking ($10-$25 depending where you park). Do some online shopping, hit up the sales at local shops, you find about the same pricing, and even much better deals in some cases. Yeah, there's some cool swag being giving away at the show, but nothing that great.
There wasn't any huge crowds on Thursday, the show entrance was basically empty the whole night.
