A company that supplies small digital advertising hoardings fitted on chairlift safety bars is expanding its operation in Colorado.
Alpine Media Technology, which is based in the state, has been making the information panels which site on the chairlift’s safety bar, rather like a line of fixed iPads, for several years and is currently working on fitting their panels to all 104 chairlifts of the Super Gauge Express lift at Winter Park.
Gerrit VandeKemp, co-founder of Alpine Media Technology, told Denver7 that the company had started at one resort, is now supplying four resorts, also including Steamboat, and that it expects to expand to 10 or 15 by the end of this year.
The panels provide real-time information including weather reports, grooming reports, lift open and closed status and even live video feeds of traffic conditions on the notorious I-70 freeway back to Denver.
Thanks to a 4G wireless connection the information displayed can be changed at any time and can carry emergency information and avalanche warnings when required.
They also carry advertising in a corner of the screen which pays for the cost of them, VandeKemp says, the ski resorts where they are located don’t have to pay anything. ‘Partners’ listed by the company include Smith Optics, Coca Cola and GoPro.
The units also don’t have a conventional electricity supply but receive a charging boost, good for 20 minutes of power, each time they pass through the lift’s base station.
