Thoughts on Paying For Parking at Snowbird

This weekend, I took the long drive to Snowbird for Oktoberfest. Oktoberfest was just as good as ever. It was family friendly, the rides were great, and it was beautiful (as usual). I was prepared for the $5 parking charge, thanks to stumbling upon the fact  previously. I don’t think many other people were, though. The cars entering in front of me seemed to be having long conversations with the money-collectors at the parking lot entrances. Friends that joined us reported the same thing.

I’ve been told by people who work for Snowbird that there weren’t many complaints about the $5 at earlier events. I wonder if that will be the case with this event, since it has a large, and varied audience. I should be interesting to watch, especially if it gets some negative press by the Tribune or one of the TV stations in Salt Lake.

The other thing I found interesting is that this $5 charge is somewhat being “sold” as an incentive to get people to ride the bus. If that were truly the case you would think there would be all sorts of large signs warning people of the charge before entering Little Cottonwood Canyon. I don’t recall seeing any. Maybe I missed that.

I could be wrong, but I am still sticking with theory that this is all a cash grab. Why wouldn’t you try to get an extra $10,000 a day for free, if you’re Snowbird? The only problem is that if it ends up costing them more than that in the end.