Download 39th Annual King of the Mountain Open Overview: Strengths and

39th Annual King of the Mountain Open
Overview:
Strengths and Weaknesses
This year’s Event went extremely well, despite rain on Friday which caused cancellation of the
juniors clinic after a short period of time. The major strength of this Event are the participants
themselves. They are a great group of people who just want to play a lot of volleyball and enjoy
themselves (without causing problems within the community) at a “mountain tournament”. Their
attitude, during the rain, was “play on, we’ll jump in the Jacuzzi later”.
Changes this year: one item which helped, tremendously, was the change of holding all the
juniors divisions at Ford Park and, having them check-in there, as well. That eliminated many of the
Vail Valley Drive parking problems that had occurred in the past. Also, utilizing the Sandstone Park
sand court helped the organizers to allow more “open” teams into the Tournament, which makes the
overall feel of the tournament stronger and can, in the future help bring more spectators to the Event.
The only glaring weakness to the Event is the lack of sufficient sand courts which would allow
for more “top level” open teams to enter from outside the Rocky Mountain Area. Although there were
more participating teams than ever before, in the modern era, we feel that we could attract more
spectators to the Vail area by being able to host a high-level open Event.
Event Budget:
The Event P&L statement is located on a separate sheet. However, for the most part, all line
items held fairly within our original budget; with the exception of Sponsorship sales and the Town of
Vail/CSE contribution. Sponsors, still, are not willing to part with their cash quite so easily as they have
in the past. As such, we did not pay a Producer’s fee this year. I was willing to forego that bit of our
budget, this year, in order to make the Event work. However, I am not willing to do that in ensuing
years. I am confident that both our Sponsorship sales will increase and the CSE/Town of Vail will see
that there is more value in this Event than formerly thought. Any questions regarding line items on the
final accounting can be answered by e-mail ([email protected]) or by phone (970-948-0395).
Marketing:
The Event utilizes many different methods of marketing/promotional vehicles to attract
participants: direct mail, direct e-mail updates and promos, periodic social internet updates and promos
on the King of the Mountain Open Facebook page, et al, and the King of the Mountain Volleyball
website. Posters, local television, and regional radio are utilized to help inform the local residents (and,
visitors alike) about the dates and times of the Event as well as to attract spectators from the “easy
drive” areas to Vail as to the happening of the Event.
We work with five distinct lodging properties who offer discounted lodging towards the
participants.
However, attendees are not obligated to stay at with our “preferred lodging
representatives”; and, as such, approximately 70% of our participants elected to stay at other forms of
lodging within the Vail area. We do not utilize the Vail Valley Partnership to help with our marketing
and/or promotions. All marketing is done “in-house” towards a specific group of people. (We do feel
that more people would come to the Vail area during this time period, due to the Event, if there was
more of an emphasis by the Vail Valley Partnership on that weekend.)
Survey Results:
We felt that an extensive survey would be overlooked by most of the participants. As such, a
simpler, shorter, survey was utilized to ascertain the lodging proclivities of the participating teams. This
resulted in many more players participating in the survey rather than taking the papers and, then, not
filling them out and returning them. To have the participants fill out the surveys as they checked-in
would have been time consuming and would have resulted in disgruntled players as well as leading to
long lines at check-in and thereby delaying the start of the Tournament on each specific day. However,
we feel that we have a very good handle on the demographics of the players and their subsequent
entourages (families, et al) and can address your questions competently:
Attendance and Demographics: 482 two-man teams attended the Event – a 16% increase over
the 2010 Event; and, keeping in line with increasing numbers, annually, since 2001. Approximately
2,000 people attended the Event directly involved with the Tournament (including families and
entourages). The majority of the participants are adults (both men and women). However, fully 1/3 of
the participants were competing in our “family oriented” divisions – juniors and our special Father/Son
and Father/Daughter divisions.
The participants pay a “team fee” to be able to compete and are tracked both via preregistration numbers and late registration entries. The majority of the participants come from the Rocky
Mountain Regions of Colorado, New Mexico, and Wyoming with others coming from Arizona, Texas,
Nebraska, and Utah.
The participants range in age from 12 years upwards of 50 and over with the majority of
them being in the late 20’s through the late 30’s in age. Most of the attendees are hard-working middle
class, and upper-middle class, wage earners who enjoy both the sport of outdoor beach volleyball and
the excitement of attending a tournament in the mountains. They are, for the most part, outdoor
enthusiasts who hike, bike, play tennis, golf, and enjoy alpine skiing.
Estimated spending by attendees: although we don’t have a direct “handle” on how much the
attendees spend (many of the attendees are family groups as well as couples), we do know that they
generated 550 room nights with 1,299 people staying in various forms of lodging from condominiums to
hotels. And, that most of the participants eat out, enjoy hiking and biking around the area, and shop
(primarily at the sports shops).
Visitor Intent to Return: we feel that our numbers speak for themselves – an increase in
attendance every year since 2001 when King of the Mountain Volleyball took over producing the Event.
We provide a professionally run Event that is both fun and competitive for the participants and which
has created a “family vacation” over Father’s Day Weekend for hundreds of outdoor volleyball
enthusiasts.
Estimated ROI on Investment for the Town of Vail: for the small amount of money that Vail has
invested in this Event, we think that bringing 482 teams into Town during this time of year w/550 room
nights generated has to be an sizable return on investment.
Sense of Community: many retail establishments contribute to the “prize pool” that is
distributed towards the finishers in the various divisions of our Event. The “sense of community” that
the Vail area has to feel must be a source of pride to the Town of Vail as it is to the producers of this
Event. Their contributions help bring many of our attendees back to Vail at other times of the year.
Environmentally Conscious: this Event has very little impact upon the environment. Very few
of our attendees smoke. And, as well, they are very “clean” and polite group of people. Our physical
set-up is limited to portable outdoor volleyball net systems which have very little impact upon the parks.
And, our physical plant is made up of “pop-up” tents. We provide recycle containers next to every trash
receptacle, which are picked-up and disposed of regularly. We utilize 100% recyclable paper for our
information sheets and we provide more than enough portable toilet systems to handle the amount of
participants and attendees. Food and beverage is handled through the licensee of the Vail Recreation
Department and they are well versed in the “green” aspect of their operation.
The potential for growth and sponsorship interest is at an all-time “high”, at the moment.
Although, it is difficult to garner large amounts of sponsorship dollars without major television, our inkind contributions have helped keep costs down and we are envisioning the ability to bring in more
dollars and participants in the immediate ensuing years.