OVER hundreds of visitors and locals are expected to turn up to Scotland’s leading snow sports and outdoor activities destination to help celebrate it’s thirtieth anniversary.
The Nevis Range Mountain Experience, near Fort William will be offering customers the chance to ski or take a gondola for the same price it was in 1989 as part of the fun-filled day.
The event will be offering a full day of snowsports tickets for £12.50 and a gondola day ticker for £3.50. However, they must be bought by 12:00 on Friday December 20.
Running all day and night there will be a competition for the best dressed person wearing ski kit or apres ski kit from 1989, with an incredible prize of a 10-year snowsports season pass for Nevis Range.
The celebration of the event will last from Saturday December 21 until midnight with informative talks from Nevis Range legends, a ceilidh, local food and drink and loads of fantastic prizes
Chris O’Brien, CEO of Nevis Range, said: “I’m immensely proud to be Chief Executive of this ever changing and ever progressing business. To be celebrating 30 years of the Nevis Range Mountain Experience is an incredible feeling, especially considering that this anniversary comes at such an exciting time.
“On the night. Ian ‘Spike’ Sykes and Ian ‘Suds’ Sutherland will be telling us all about the early days and history of Nevis Range, while Mike Jardine and Lesley Beck will give us the fascinating story of the UCI MTB World Cup. They’ll be plenty more guests, surprises and give-aways on the night as well as bands and even the fire dancers from PyroCeltica.
“I hope we’ll see a huge turnout to join us all in a 30th birthday to remember.”
Nevis Range will be laying on a free shuttle bus service from Fort William and Corpach to transport party goers to and from the venue where celebrations will resume from 17.00 to 00.00.
The first 50 people to get to Nevis Range for the evening’s party will receive a special Nevis Range give away.
The hugely popular PyroCeltica, who pioneer their own brand of Celtic Fire Theatre, will be getting the evening off to a jaw dropping start, pushing the boundaries of performance and delivering high energy and smoking hot showstoppers with a fusion of circus, music, dance and theatre melded together in flames.
Nevis Range founders, Ian Sykes (Spike) and Ian Sutherland (Suds), who were key in driving the original Nevis Range concept forward, will regale tales of how a group of close friends in a small, remote community with a never give up attitude, rallied local businesses into action to raise a million pounds in less than a month in order to make their dream of a snowsports centre on Aonoch Mor in the 1980’s a reality.
They will also comment on the incredible hard work and positive innovation that has gone in to securing the venue’s future as a renowned outdoor activities centre.
Mike Jardine and Lesley Beck from Rare Management, organisers of the annual UCI Mountain Bike World Cup, hosted at Nevis Range since 2002, will give a talk about the early days of mountain biking at Nevis Range and the development of the venue’s now legendary downhill track.
They will also focus on the multi-award winning success of the British round of the UCI Mountain Bike World Cup and the UCI Mountain Bike World Championships in 2007; whilst giving a sneak preview of plans for the forthcoming Mountain Bike World Championships in 2023.
This will be followed by a fun fuelled Ceilidh, with local bands A’hooligan and The Gary Innes Band, both guaranteed to get everyone up on their feet until home time at midnight.
Mad-trad group A’hooligan have been a favourite at Nevis Range ceilidhs for years; yet it will be particularly special night for award winning accordionist and founding member of super-group Mànran, Gary Innes, who was born and raised in Spean Bridge and was a Nevis Range ‘lifty’[Lift operator] in his teenage years. Locally brewed beers and lagers, some of the Nevis Range staff’s favourite, will be on sale from The Glen Spean Brewery Co pop-up bar all evening.
