World Alpine Rockfest to match racing and music

By Published On: March 12th, 2009Comments Off on World Alpine Rockfest to match racing and music

Remember Paganella?

A lot of the U.S. Ski Team does. It’s the not so small ski area in Andalo, Italy that became an official ski team training site back in 2006. In December the site will host the World Alpine Rockfest centered around a race between invited top end World Cup skiers in a winner take all 100,000 Euro pay-out and big time rock and roll on the stage being built at the finish line.Remember Paganella?

A lot of the U.S. Ski Team does. It’s the not so small ski area in Andalo, Italy that became an official ski team training site back in 2006. In December the site will host the World Alpine Rockfest centered around a race between invited top end World Cup skiers in a winner take all 100,000 Euro pay-out and big time rock and roll on the stage being built at the finish line.

Among the guys who set up the team training site at Paganella was former U.S. men’s coach Phil McNichol. To say he’s involved with the World Alpine Rockfest would be an understatement.

“It’s been an insane roller-coaster,” he said from a hotel room in Italy. “This thing has been in the works since June, but really nothing had progressed.” He flew to Italy Feb. 23 and has been hammering on the project since he arrived.

“I guess,” he says, “you can build Rome overnight… if you’re willing to stay up all night.”

What he and a consortium of the ski resort, Andalo and the Trentino Region, and MTV Europe and an event specialist in Italy called Speedy Factory have built may exceed Rome’s legendary appetite. April 12th the event, scheduled for Dec. 22, was announced.

“It’s been fun to get people fired up so it’s their own dream and do it all in a country where you can’t speak the language,” McNichol said. “When you first tell them about it you get a look like you’re trying to sell them a trip to Mars. Now, you can see it, almost feel it. The guys at Paganella are all fired up.”

Paganella is one of few sites where it would even be possible to think about a venture like this, one that’s going to cost about $2million to pull off. But since the area became a training site it has continued to boom. Business this season, McNichol has been told, was up 20 percent.

“It has been intense,” McNichol says. “We dropped into the scene and it’s like saying ‘tomorrow let’s do a World Cup in Loveland. … That is basically what we’ve done and it Italy there is no such thing as a short meeting.”

The athletic side of the venture will feature a field of 16 top male World Cup athletes going head-to-head on short GS styled after the old pro format. A dozen “ski sport celebrities” will start off the competition by inviting two fellow competitors (the Italian representative gets to invite four). The invitees will have a shoot-out, a single run speed event with the fastest four getting into the mix with the original 12 for the chance at the grand prize.

Seven athletes are already signed: David Simoncelli, Julien Lizeroux, Matthias Hargin, Ted Ligety, John Kucera, Felix Neureuther and Marco Buechel. Other signings are imminent with an announcement set for April 2.

The race is specifically scheduled to take advantage of the World Cup holiday break. “They’ll be and hour and a half away at Alta Badia,” McNichol said, “so it made sense.”

It’s also a quick event, about 24 hours start to finish, “so it won’t screw up Christmas plans.”

Other racers have been contacted, Bode Miller, among them and seem poised to join the party.

“The timing hasn’t been that great to talk with these guys,” says McNichol who handled the bulk of the athlete signings. “But even the very elite were great to sit with and were fired up… though there was still a little of the going to Mars look.”

He said there are “more hoops” to jump through with the Austrians. “Austria is a tight house,” he said, “but we are very committed to having an Austrian appear and will work to make that happen. They truly have great ski sport celebrities. We want to give them the opportunity to not be (just) Austrian and show they’re just like everybody else, just fast on skis.”

The actual racing, he said, will be before a pretty exclusive audience. The stadium, up the mountain, will hold just 4,000. The big part of the show will be downtown.

The athlete lounge will allow guests to rub elbows with the stars and allow the athletes to take part in promoting their sport, much like Nascar or Formula One formats.

The concert is at the race finish, about mid-way up the gondola and is expected to attract many more than those who get to watch the racing from the stands. Bands Nickelback, Audioslave and Pink are mentioned as bands in “negotiations,” by McNichol says, “MTV Europe represents over 400 bands. To the best of my knowledge the negotiations are pretty far along, but it’s complex.

“It’s about a major concert and we want people to understand the magnitude of the rock bands we’re bringing in.”

So it’s rock and roll and ski racing. And the event logo for the World Alpine Rockfest is centered around a star, like the one McNichol wore on his jacket when he coached the U.S. team. “Yeah,” he says, “they surprised me with that.”

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About the Author: Pete Rugh