My thoughts have always been the same, open the sport up first, then let it develope commercially. My number one goal with promoting my own business has always been promote the sport first and my company second, and both will eventually grow. Competition in the marketplace is good yes, once the market place is open, competition also can lead to lame brand wars... so lets keep the brands out of this and open up a mountain, even if its a slow process.
This is from Jake Burton, founder of Burton Snowboards.
One of the keys to the success of Burton was Jake's push to make snowboarding a sport, even though initially ski area access was not on Jake's agenda. "I kept saying, 'this sport has got to happen". It worked almost too well. "Sport first," he says, pointing to his introduction in an early catalog which promotes the sport of snowboarding without mentioning Burton the company. "Purely sport, not Burton. We worked with ski areas. We set up competitions. But left ourselves open."
excerpt taken from:
http://burton.com/Company/CompanyMeetJake.aspx
So lets get an event going, promoted by local riders, maybe the UWA, or a self appointed group and lets make part of this winters race circuit series take place at Powder Mtn.... management accepting of course.
Events aside, my main concern is them simply first officially opening the place up, charging us to be there and allowing us to legitly be there. Then a comp/event or even brands could come in and grow the place......but first it must be 'opened'.
More to follow..Windzup, Brian Schenck - I mean all this with the best intentions. I have a sincere interest to see the sport grow, and not be limited or pigeon holed. Snowkiting is a pure sport, that needs not be tainted by other outside influences or industries, like snowboarding, snowkiting has a chance to develope into its own thang.... (and I would like to see it grow without a tainted view from the windsurf/kitesurf industries:)