Major surge in attendance at Lively Ski Hill last winter, report says

A surge in attendance at the ski hill in Lively has prompted city staff to recommend the hill remain open and the installation of new equipment.

A report going to city council June 10 recommends that the Lively Ski Hill stay open and resume capital projects that were previously approved and put on hold.

The future of the hill was in doubt last summer when Sudbury city council debated whether to spend close to $775,000 in capital work at the hill.

Councillors voted to delay capital spending but allowed the hill to open for another season using existing equipment to see whether attendance would recover after several challenging seasons.

In addition to closures because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the extremely warm winter led to a short season and a big drop in attendance.

A local effort to save the hill – and a more normal winter – saw attendance increase from a total of 715 in the 2023-2024 season to 4,052 in the 2024-2025 season.

“Was super excited when I saw the report and how the community really came together to put their support behind this,” said Ward 2 Coun. Eric Benoit.

Cost recovery is key

The surge in attendance allowed the hill to recover 39 per cent of its operating costs last winter, compared to just 6.7 per cent a year earlier.

“They told us that we needed to get people to come out to the hill,” said David Kurt, from the hill’s planning committee.

“We know that we needed to get to 65 per cent cost recovery ... We’re actually quite a bit shy of that, at about 40 per cent. But to see the numbers at over 4,000 people was just absolutely incredible.”

Kurt said the committee did several things to increase traffic, including things like adding fire pits and seating at the bottom of the hill, as well as creating Friday fun nights.

“The first one we did was, I think it was retro night, but then we had beaver tails there,” he said.

“There was an hour lineup … They had no idea it was gonna’ be that busy. They sold out of product that night. We were told that there (were) between 300 and 400 people at the hill that night. So just like last year, we didn’t even see those numbers – like, we saw 700 people all season long.”

Matt Foy’s father, Gary Foy, was one of the people who brought this hill to life in 1963. When he heard the news that city staff recommended the hill stay open, Foy was elated.

“It makes me very, very happy,” he said.

“It just goes to show the power of community. And it just makes me thrilled to know that this is happening.”

While the city looked for an outside operator to come in and run the hill, it didn’t attract any bids. So the report recommended it remain operated by the city.

“I think we actually did prove that it can generate enough income to be city-run, for now,” Foy said.

“And we’ll just keep going with that. And if we need to, we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”

Staff also recommends that lift equipment removed from the Capreol location be installed at the Lively Ski Hill to replace the existing 1960s-era T-bar system.

They also recommend that capital funds remain paused until the Lively Recreation Advisory Panel moves forward. Council will vote on the report at Tuesday’s meeting.