Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Our first question is from the line of Felicia Hendrix with Lehman Brothers.
Felicia Hendrix - Lehman Brothers
Good morning. Okay, so I know you don’t want to give a lot of details about the epic pass but I would like some. I am wondering if the sales are at least tracking your expectations or exceeding your expectations. If you can give us any kind of color at all.
Robert A. Katz
Felicia, what I would say is that the -- I would say that they are exceeding our expectations but that the bulk of our expectations for their sales were really in the fall, so what I would say is we are pleased to date but obviously this is a product that -- where the I guess sales really start in earnest after Labor Day and I think it’s not the same as our Colorado pass and Heavenly passes, where I think we’ve conditioned the market to start purchasing these passes much earlier in the year. Does that help?
Felicia Hendrix - Lehman Brothers
No, that’s actually very helpful. Now, regarding your Colorado pass and your other passes, do you think that you are seeing any kind of cannibalization from the epic pass? You know, perhaps now people are going to wait and buy that pass later versus the current passes that you have?
Robert A. Katz
I wouldn’t call it cannibalization. I would probably call it an upgrade and we are seeing people who purchased the epic pass last -- who purchased a Colorado or Heavenly or Summit pass last year purchasing the epic pass this year.
We don’t think in the end that that will be a huge number but we are seeing some of those people upgrade and that’s certainly part of the reason that I think it was a good product. But again, ultimately the epic pass’ success will really be about how well it does outside of Colorado, starting in the fall.
Felicia Hendrix - Lehman Brothers
Okay, so for like the 2% increase in the Colorado pass sales, can you attribute -- your number is a little bit lower than what we expected. I know that there were tough comps. Can you attribute some of it to what you just mentioned, or do you think some of it might just be general consumer weakness?
Robert A. Katz
I think it’s -- you know, it’s very hard for us to say. I think that when you -- I think that the epic pass helped those numbers somewhat because of the higher price. But what I would say though is that I think that the piece that I think we are focused on is the fact that we were so far ahead of last year and yet ultimately wound up ahead but nowhere near 59% ahead, which is I think something that we knew last year, that we’re a little low to start drawing comparisons or getting -- you know, this is why we said we’re pleased with what’s happened. We’re very satisfied with the results to date and I think we’ll know a lot more kind of come the earnings release at the end of September.
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