Work Kestrel Basin
The early-bird pass sold out in 19 days.
Kestrel Basin wanted it gone before the snow melted. It was gone by March 14.
19 days
from launch to sold out, for all 11,500 early-bird passes. Last year's window was nine weeks, and it didn't sell out.
The problem
Kestrel had taught its skiers to wait.
Last year's early-bird pass ran for nine weeks and sold 78% of its cap. The other 2,530 passes went out on a fall discount. Skiers noticed. The cheapest pass at Kestrel Basin wasn't the early one. It was the late one.
This year the price went up $40, to $649, and the cap stayed at 11,500. The mountain needed the full early-bird revenue in hand by spring to fund a lift replacement, so a fall discount wasn't an option. The job was to make waiting feel expensive.
What we did
We put a number on the mountain and let it count down.
The whole campaign was one fact, said everywhere: there are 11,500 of these, and here's how many are left.
The count, as it read on March 14. Same number on the pass page, the gondola screens, the lift-line boards and the base lodge TV.
A public counter.
The pass page, the gondola screens, the lift-line boards and the base lodge TV all showed the same live count of passes remaining. Nobody had to be told to hurry. They could watch it happen.
A head start for the regulars.
Launch day went to 2025 pass holders, who got the first 72 hours by email, with their own count. They bought 41% of the passes before the public ever saw the page. That did half the marketing for us: the public count opened at 6,785, not 11,500.
Paid where it counts.
We spent on Front Range skiers who had bought a day ticket at Kestrel three or more times last season. People who already drove up. They didn't need convincing that the mountain was good. They needed the arithmetic.
Content shot that week.
We filmed on the mountain in mid February, on real snow, with real patrollers and the people who run the lifts. Each day's social post was the count, a frame from that morning, and a sentence. No montage, no drone over a sunrise.
The count did the selling. We just kept it in front of people.
What happened
Sold out on March 14. No fall discount this year.
The fall discount is gone from next year's plan. So is the nine-week window. Kestrel has asked for a shorter one.