Aspen Skiing Company and Sports Content Creation LLC revealed details for Winter X Games Aspen 2025 at a Tuesday Pitkin County Commission work session.

Every year, the two companies must submit a special event permit application for X Games at Buttermilk Ski Area. And this year, there are some changes to the permit specifics.

X Games will run from Thursday, Jan. 23 to Saturday, Jan. 25. Typically, the games run from Friday to Sunday. Times include:

• 5-11 p.m. Thursday, Jan 23
• 10 a.m.-11 p.m. Friday, Jan 24
• 10 a.m.-11 p.m. Saturday, Jan 25, 2025

The reason for this change is X Games is known for being “under the lights,” said Valerie Ryan, X Games marketing and event development director.

“Making that shift allows us to differentiate us from other winter action sports events,” she said.

With the final day being Sunday, the events would end at 4 or 5 p.m., and the lights would not be on for those games. Shifting the event series back by a day allows for more games to happen under the lights.

Paid tickets will be required again for prime viewing areas during the games.

The tickets will be $50 per day, and locals will receive a 50% discount. The music component has been a separate cost in the past, but this year it is included in the ticket price. This does not include taxes or any kind of shipping.

There will no longer be live concerts. Music from DJs will be provided instead. Sports Content Creation applied for a noise variance from the Pitkin County Environmental Health Department.

Pitkin County Commissioner Kelly McNicholas Kury, however, raised some questions. She said that “no one went last year” and asked how the new companies will address the aging ski population.

To get younger skiers involved, Ryan said in addition to the discounted tickets for locals, Aspen Skiing Company and Sports Content Creation will be working with the schools to create a school program.

As for the optics of how many people were in attendance last year, Ryan said that when calculating capacity, the companies make sure these people have enough space in the viewing area.  

The event will have a capacity limit this year. Of 8,000 spectators, only 5,000 tickets will be sold each day, with the remaining 3,000 saved for staff, athletes, vendors, security, and medical and safety personnel.

“What’s interesting is, when you see the crowds as they kind of squish together at the base of either the superpipe or the slopestyle corral, it will look empty because no one is standing behind them,” she said. “Everyone squished together. But we won’t keep selling just because there is room in the corral.”

The only free viewing area will be if attendees take a ski lift on Buttermilk and ski down to the competition area. 

Again, there will be no motorsports. The ski and snowboard competitions will be the same as last year, which include halfpipe, slopestyle, big air, street style, and knuckle huck.

There will be no public parking on-site, but shuttles from Aspen, Snowmass Village, and Brush Creek Park and Ride will be available.

Final approval and issuance will come from Community Development and the Pitkin County Sheriff. Pitkin County commissioners only provide direction on the permit. Aspen Ambulance and the Colorado State Patrol are independent contracts that are done through Aspen Skiing Company and Sports Content Creation directly.

Two years ago, ownership of the games changed from Disney to Sports Content Creation. Disney is still a partial stakeholder in the games. The event will be televised on ABC and ESPN. 

Ryan said the event is still running the same as the past despite the ownership change.

“We’re not just putting on a TV event by having limitations on our capacity. There’s a lot of other things that it does help. It helps us from a safety perspective, in case of an incident that might happen, it helps us be able to predict how many buses,” she said. “So there’s other factors, but it really does provide 5,000 people with the best experience possible, instead of having 20,000 people, and only some of them being able to even catch a glimpse of the competitions.”

A funding request has not been made from Aspen Skiing Company and Sports Content Creation to the county yet, but in the past the county has subsidized the games through its Elected Officials Transportation Committee (EOTC) fund.

Commissioner Patti Clapper asked to see the attendance numbers from last year.

Ryan said there were about 3,000 tickets sold Friday, 4,400 Saturday, and 2,500 Sunday. She is unsure how many attendees were in the free section, but she estimates that 55,000 in total attended over the three days.

Commissioner Greg Poschman noted that last December the Aspen Chamber Resort Association (ACRA) presented their Aspen destination management plan. There are three pillars the association identified: addressing visitor pressure, enhancing the Aspen experience, preserving small town character, or rather as Poschman put it “focused on enhancing the visitor experience, but also preserving what makes Aspen unique.”

“This is becoming a conversation because we’re seeing these big events and expert games that’s been here for 24 years, and I’m gratified to see that it’s not getting bigger, at least I don’t think it is,” he said.

Poschman did note that he did not know the exact numbers for last year yet, so he does not really know what the impact was. He is worried, however, about the summer event. 

“But I’m just thinking, are we going to expect Buttermilk to turn into a venue that attracts thousands and thousands of people on a regular basis, and what is the thinking at the company?” he said. “You’re looking for ways to make money for SkiCo, but you know, what does this mean for us as a community?”

This story is from AspenTimes.com