Powder Magazine managing editor John Davies said the Ski Town Throwdown social media competition was a water-cooler dispute that escalated.
“It started as a pretty heated arguement just in our editorial arguement, arguing about which ski areas are our favourites and we realized we kind of tapped a vein, and we wanted to open up that conversation to all our readers,” Davies told the Times Review.
The competition sees ski areas across North America compete head-to-head by voting on Powder Magazine’s Facebook page.
Revelstoke is up against Eaglecrest, Alaska in the Elite 8 competition today.
As of the noon hour on Nov. 20, Revelstoke is trailing 1,105 to 736.
Davies said the social media campaign has been a runaway success for the skiing magazine.
“The response has been far, far bigger and far reaching than we ever could have imagined,” he said. “It has been really fun to watch. Everybody gets so fired up because people are really passionate about these places that they choose to live and work and ski.”
Ski towns have got behind the competition online and offline, dreaming up creative techniques to boost voting.
“In Crested Butte they were making people vote to get into a bar,” Davies said. “We’ve heard of voting being announced on the school announcements at all the local schools. [Nelson Mayor John Dooley] was going around [door-to-door] last year. It kind of gets back to that grassroots organic marketing. You want to reach the folks that aren’t, and the only way to do that is to hit the streets, to hit the pavement.”
Davies said Revelstoke is a frontrunner in a strong Great White North division, predicting the winner will hail from our division.
For two years in a row, Revelstoke has also earned the nod from the Powder Magazine editorial team as the best place to ski in North America.
“It has to do with the great vertical and the great snowfall at Revelstoke and also the lack of other skiers – so we call it powder per person – so we feel like Revelstoke is the best place in North America to ski powder,” Davies said.
To vote in the Elite 8, visit Powder Magazine on Facebook and cast your vote before midnight on Thursday, Nov. 21.
