Facility Management

Snowboarding as a sport first featured in the Winter Olympics in 1998, this came after a gradual build up of the sport becoming more and more popular with people of all ages.  Snowboarding itself was first brought to peoples attention in the late 1960’s and gained in popularity over the 1970’s, although it wasn’t until the mid 1980’s that snowboarding really started to take off.  Cities such as Sheffield picked up on the fact that more people were starting to take an interest in skiing and snowboarding, but unless abroad had nowhere to practice their skill.  The Ski Village in Sheffield was formed, and offered people of all ages the chance to ski on an artificial ski slope.  Situated in the Parkwood Springs area of the city, this artificial ski slope is thought to be the biggest in Europe, and is also the training location for many professional snowboarding freestylers, the Yorkshire Freestyle Squad can often be found here training.

As well as a ski slope, there are other fun things to do on this particular complex.  There is a huge outdoor adventure playground which usually costs around a £1 in the school holidays, and children can play for most of the day here, should they so wish.  There is also a restaurant, bowling alley and ski shop, which sells all sorts of Snowwear.

There are many complexes around Europe which offer people the chance to practice their hobby, without having to travel to colder climates, most of these facilities have good management, ensuring the smooth running of the complex 24 hours a day, they all have some form of shop selling merchandise such as Burton snowboard pant (Burton Snowboardhose).  Many of these dry slopes are in good locations and are also within easy reach of hotels.

Although snowboarding and skiing is good to practice on the artificial slopes around Europe, there is nothing that compares with the actual thrill of doing it for real, on one of the many slopes which can be found in places such as California, Canada, Sweden and France.