2024 FES Agenda

8:00-8:30 a.m.: Registration Open and Continental Breakfast

8:30-12:00 p.m.: Educational Sessions

Marking, Padding, Hazard Awareness and Duties to Warn

The issue of padding and marking is rapidly evolving, with growing claims including one of the largest plaintiff’s demand in any ski lawsuit ever—$97 million!—resulting in a crucial defense verdict in a padding trial. This session is a timely and important follow-up to last year’s discussion on padding. We will discuss the latest efforts from proposed ASTM and ISO padding standards, and their impact on resort operations, the next steps in standards development and industry best practices. As padding and marking claims grow, we’ll provide new helpful risk management tools regarding padding about guest education, signage, and releases of liability. Also, we will look at recent skier collision litigation and the impacts of these verdicts on the ski industry. This is a must-attend session for owners, mountain operations, risk, and ski patrol.

Safety and operations after the Miller vs. Crested Butte Ruling: New Risks and Exposures for Lifts and Unseated Passengers?

This summer, the Colorado Supreme Court released an unprecedented ruling in Miller vs. Crested Butte limiting the enforceability of releases of liability involving chairlift incidents and unseated passengers. This ruling will be closely analyzed in other ski states, even though ski areas do an impressive job with training, we will need to expand our guest education efforts, and consider smarter operations and technology solutions like video surveillance. Despite recent regulations from ANSI B-77 addressing unseated passengers, this session will compare which devices and approaches are more effective for unseated passengers, and share best practices on education and training, particularly with ski patrol, lift departments, and ski school operations. With our ASDA counsel, we will discuss how this ruling impacts releases overall, and we will examine the best industry strategies to limit these incidents and mitigate falls.

12:00-1:00 p.m.: Lunch (included)

1:00-4:30 p.m.: Educational Sessions

Risk Management Grab Bag: Quick Hits, High Notes and the Best of New Risk Management Strategies

This fast-paced session will include a variety of unique risk management strategies from around the industry, with some helpful tools to implement over the next season or two—and we’ll incorporate clever ideas from ski areas as we hit each FES stop. This will include new technologies and practices regarding incident investigation, mountain operations, vehicle safety, construction contracts, employee safety, and NSP’s new Outdoor Risk Management modules, to name just a few. These strategies cross a variety of ski area departments, but Ryan and Dave will keep this session moving with important take-aways!

Ski Area Operations, Accessibility and the Americans with Disabilities Act

Ski area operations are highly unique compared to other businesses, but accessibility challenges and exposure risks from the ADA still remain for our recreational businesses. While the ADA is significantly broad in application, we want to lead an industry conversation about what approaches work best for accommodating families with disabilities and mitigating potential legal exposure. Given the breadth of our operations at ski areas, this discussion will include ski school operations, lifts, F&B and restaurants, weddings, rentals, parking lots, alternative sliding devices, lodging, summer attractions, and importantly, the importance of expanded guest education. Expanding overall accessibility is a smart business model, and will also serve to mitigate confusion, family stress, and ADA claims—and we will provide some tools to help achieve this.