In the 1930s, Breckenridge was limping. Mines were closing. The railroad was pulling up stakes. And the local women’s club discovered their town had been omitted from official maps.
So with a characteristic scrappiness that has defined the mining-turned-resort town, the ladies threw a party. The No Man’s Land party launched in 1936, celebrating what they called “The Kingdom of Breckenridge” with flag-raising parties, swinging dances and horse races. The summertime No Man’s Land Festival joined the town’s annual Ullr Fest as a celebration of Breckenridge’s resilience from mining town to the most trafficked ski resort in the country.
Vail Resorts is tapping into Breckenridge’s rich history with a new marketing campaign, which alongside a new plan for neighboring Keystone, marks a revived effort by the largest resort operator in North America to promote its individual resorts.
The “Kingdom of Breckenridge” and Keystone’s “Lifetime of Firsts” campaigns launched last week and highlight a new marketing approach for Vail Resorts, which has spent more than 15 years focused more on marketing its Epic Pass than its 42 individual ski areas.
“The Kingdom has been part of Breckenridge over decades, rooted in 90 years of storytelling, celebrations and community,” reads the company’s announcement of the new marketing plan.
The Keystone “Lifetime of Firsts” marketing push launched with a video of parents skiing with freshly schooled kids, a young couple learning new tricks in the Area 51 terrain park, first-time night skiers and a couple of teenagers going for an evening skate.
The shift away from strictly marketing season passes is part of what Vail Resorts CEO Rob Katz this summer said was a recognition that the pass market is “reaching maturity.”
“I think as we look to the future, really the focus has to be on two things, which is the experience that people are having rather than, necessarily, the access, … and two, how do we continue to grow this,” he said at the Outside Summit in Denver in May.
Skiers are not expecting the same experience they were 20 years ago, said Katz, whose ad campaigns will target new and younger demographics that have been overlooked by the resort industry. The company also is shifting more attention to selling lift tickets, with prices that can drop when demand eases during slower stretches of the winter.
Sparking interest in new customers starts with these resort-specific ad campaigns. In June, Katz told investors that early marketing campaigns last fall with “a clearer focus on our resorts” was helping to sell more passes and spike interest in individual resorts.
The resort campaigns are not all new. The company is using its longstanding “Like Nothing on Earth” narrative for the Vail ski area. Beaver Creek is getting new energy in its “Not Exactly Roughing It” marketing. And Crested Butte Mountain Resort is moving forward with its “Be Wild” campaign that will trumpet the steep resort’s renown for inbounds expert terrain and celebrate the ski area’s 65th anniversary this winter.
“The way we think about it: Every one of our mountains has a personality, and our job is to make that personality unmistakable,” company spokesperson John Plack said.
Lucy Kay spent several decades marketing Breckenridge and Keystone ski areas for Vail Resorts and now she’s the head of the Breckenridge Tourism Office. The company worked with her team to help it craft the new “Kingdom of Breckenridge” campaign.
“I think it’s smart. If it feels like they are plateauing on pass sales, it’s a good idea to shift a bit on strategy,” Kay said.
Breckenridge, which ranks as either the first or second busiest ski resort in the U.S., a title it regularly trades with Vail ski area, had a hard winter. The resort town saw fewer visitors and spending for the 2025-26 winter was down 8% to a five-year low.
It could have been worse, Kay said, without Vail Resorts teams making midstream adjustments, like opening the summertime alpine slide in November when ski terrain was limited.
Kay said the new “Kingdom of Breckenridge” campaign is fun and reflects “the spirit of our town.”
She should have a good idea about the effectiveness of the new outreach by late fall when reservations for the ski season start rolling in.
“We like it,” she said. “And this is what marketing is all about. You try different things and if something doesn’t work, you try something else.”