Queenstown open for skiing action on Saturday
NZSki chief executive Paul Anderson says both The Remarkables and Coronet Peak will open as scheduled from 9am on Saturday, with the latter opening from top to bottom.
At Coronet, all the beginner conveyor lifts, the Meadows Chair and Coronet Express would be in action — Rocky Gully and Green gates would not be open, "but we'll be looking to add those in as soon as we can stitch that together".
At The Remarkables, the learners' conveyors, Alta and Curvey Basin would be open for action, with Sugar Bowl and Shadow Basin still to come, Mr Anderson said.
"Our whole objective in getting both mountains open on the same day is to send a really, really strong signal to the market that ... Queenstown's open for business, and hopefully you see that switch flipped and the town gets busy very quickly."
Mr Anderson said last weekend's perfectly timed snowfall had been supplemented by a huge amount of snowmaking, which he believed had been the longest period of snowmaking in Queenstown for a decade.
"And the new guns we've got up there, they are just incredible."
At The Remarkables, for example, the whales of snow from the guns were higher than the conveyor covers.
"It just gives you an idea of the amount of snow they were belting out."
He estimated Coronet was opening with between 60cm and 120cm on trail, and about 60cm at The Remarkables.
"We're kind of expecting the locals to come out in force once they hear how good the on-trail skiing is ... It'll be nice to get a bit of a dump before school holidays, but with or without it, we're going to have a good school holidays, I can see that."
Cardrona, which along with Treble Cone is owned by Queenstown-based company RealNZ, will also open on Saturday.
Chief mountains officer Laura Hedley said thanks to an "incredible effort" from the snowmaking team, and some help from Mother Nature, the McDougall's Chondola and the learner conveyors would be spinning.
Skiers and boarders would be able to access McDougalls' trail and the beginners' area from Saturday, while the North Face Cardrona parks crew would also put in a few features in McPark, the temporary early-season terrain park under McDougalls.
"Our new base area building is nearing completion, and we are aiming to get our new Cardrona Corner retail shop open on Saturday, too," Ms Hedley said.
To reflect the early season offering, Cardies day passes will be at early season rates until Whitestar Express opens.
Treble Cone is scheduled to open on June 28.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
NZ Herald
2 hours ago
- NZ Herald
AI marketing presentation start-up Aether, cofounded by TikTok NZ boss, raises $4m, signs big clients
In its first few months, Aether has signed 18 clients, including ASX-listed firms, as it hit an annual recurring revenue rate of $600,000 while still under the radar. Early customers include Kiwibank and the Australian operation of the US-based multinational Edgewell Personal Care (whose brand stable includes Wilkinson Sword, Banana Boat, Playtex and Stayfree). And it's just signed a 'seven-figure deal' with a global fast-moving consumer goods firm with 22,000 marketing staff. Why would they not just, say, ask Copilot to create a PowerPoint, or take advantage of any of the various GenAI (generative artificial intelligence) bots that let you create presentations with natural language prompts? Creating a presentation using Aether. Gruber said the GenAIs are designed for a general audience of millions, or billions, while Aether has been honed from the ground up for marketing presentations and the likes of quarterly business reviews, monthly performance reports, campaign reports, agency briefs and knowledge management – tasks that traditionally drain resources and delay decision-making. Among its party tricks, Aether doesn't just create static decks. A presentation is 'live' – automatically refreshing when underlying data synched to it is updated. Gruber said it addresses widespread 'organisational amnesia' where a big company spends large amounts on research only for it to be forgotten or underutilised. Pound (who has also joined the board) said Aether is aimed at the top end of town. Many of its early customers have more than 5000 staff and large in-house marketing teams. Aether is aimed at making it easier for staff (including non-marketing staff) to access source materials, then easily turn them into a presentation, he added. New+Improved co-founder and Aether director Simon Pound says big companies can spend millions on marketing research, but sometimes lack the tools for all staff to easily access it and turn it into presentations. Photo / Jason Oxenham 'AI allows us to not only make faster, on-brand, well-formatted documents and presentations, but it also means the millions of dollars of research, strategy and proprietary data like sales, customer or market data to be brought to bear on every piece of work, in a way no human ever could,' Pound said. 'Aether generates insightful and presentation-ready storylines from large and complex files, saving our team hours on data synthesis and summation,' Dave Took, Edgewell's Asia-Pacific head of consumer insights, said. Creating a presentation using Aether. Gruber held senior roles with Google and Meta in Germany before setting up TikTok's operations in the country. In 2023, he shifted to New Zealand to set up TikTok's first office here. 'My wife is a Kiwi,' he said. Co-founder Ursula von Keisenberg, Aether's Melbourne-based co-founder, previously served as ANZ managing director at Timely and emerging markets sales lead at Xero Asia. The team also includes head-of-customer Rosanna Dedecius (until recently with Datacom) and Sydney-based product and strategy chief Daniel Alexander-Head, formerly a regional sales manager with US brand-building software firm Qualtrics. The seed raise will be used to accelerate product development and expand the global team, currently spread across Australia and New Zealand. Although he's previously worked for Big Tech, Gruber said a start-up vibe is nothing new. When he established TikTok's beachhead in Germany, with 10 staff, he was one of eight starting the same day. And when he set up the social media giant's New Zealand office, in Auckland, he had to do everything from scratch, from ordering tables and chairs to mapping the local chief marketing office landscape then making cold calls. Chris Keall is an Auckland-based member of the Herald's business team. He joined the Herald in 2018 and is the technology editor and a senior business writer.
NZ Herald
13 hours ago
- NZ Herald
Xero board faces ‘first strike' over CEO's $26m pay package
It came weeks after Xero backed itself to crack the North American market with an almost $4 billion buy of payments startup Melio, and arguably at a time when shareholder confidence was essential. Against this backdrop, Xero was paying US$15.2m ($26.1m) to chief executive Sukhinder Singh Cassidy. It also paid a US$14.4m sign-on bonus to US-based chief financial officer Claire Bramley, who joined in February. According to Australian media, under standard Australian Securities Exchange rules, the vote would count as a formal strike against Xero's board. Those rules held that a vote of 25% against a resolution was counted as a so-called 'first strike'. A second such vote would mean the board could be tossed out in a re-election. However, Xero being a New Zealand-domiciled company meant that it was not governed by the 'two-strike' rule, meaning the ballot was more theoretical than it was a reality. Even if the ballot was symbolic, investors had registered the depth of their discontent. Xero's chair, David Thodey, at one time CEO of Australian telco Telstra, said the company needed to pay more than Australian salaries to lure top talent over those packages on offer from higher-paying US companies. Three 'jobs' in one package Meanwhile, Cassidy viewed the acquisition of the previously unprofitable Melio deal as a critical value to Xero's nascent North American offering, enabling it to scale. Cassidy was referring to Xero's 3x3 strategy, which was to combine three 'jobs' – accounting, payroll and payments – into a single package and win market share in Australia, the UK and North America. Xero has made good progress in Australia and the UK, but the much larger promise of the North American market has so far proved elusive. Other resolutions, including the re-election of directors Brian McAndrews, Susan Peterson and Thodey, achieved almost unanimous shareholder support.
Scoop
13 hours ago
- Scoop
Taradale High School Students Partner With Tech Company To Develop AI-Powered App Fighting Food Waste
Press Release – Taradale High School Young Enterprise The 'InstaMeal' app, conceived by the three-member Young Enterprise team led by students Tessa Mason, Greer Nesbit, and Sebastian Croft, represents a cutting-edge solution to a pressing environmental and economic challenge. A team of innovative students from Taradale High School has partnered with local tech company Incredible Software to develop a groundbreaking mobile application that tackles New Zealand's food waste crisis through the power of artificial intelligence. The 'InstaMeal' app, conceived by the three-member Young Enterprise team led by students Tessa Mason, Greer Nesbit, and Sebastian Croft, represents a cutting-edge solution to a pressing environmental and economic challenge. The application uses AI-powered image recognition to scan users' fridges and pantries, automatically identifying available ingredients and generating multiple recipe suggestions to minimise food wastage. How It Works Users simply take a photo of their fridge or pantry contents, and the app's advanced AI technology identifies all available ingredients. The system then generates multiple recipe options using only the ingredients on hand, helping families avoid unnecessary grocery purchases while reducing household food waste. The app also features manual input options, recipe saving functionality, and the ability to generate shopping lists for multi-meal planning. The 2023 Rabobank-KiwiHarvest Food Waste survey found New Zealand wastes $3.2 billion worth of food annually – enough to feed approximately 688,000 Kiwis for an entire year. 'The main goal is to reduce food wastage because obviously we know that there's a lot of that in New Zealand, and it will help to save money as well because we're in an expensive time,' said Tessa, project team leader from Taradale High School. 'It can help minimise grocery purchases that you don't really need.' Professional Development Partnership In a generous move, Incredible Software, a New Zealand-based AI development company, has committed to building the application pro bono. The partnership emerged when company owner Matt Browning recognised the project's potential impact during Young Enterprise mentoring. 'When these students came up with this idea, I immediately saw the potential for real environmental and social impact,' said Matt Browning, Co-CEO of Incredible Software. 'We've built similar AI-powered applications as internal tools for businesses, and this project represents exactly the kind of innovative thinking we want to support. These students are using AI for good – that's something everyone should get behind.' Addressing Real Challenges The timing of the InstaMeal app couldn't be more relevant. With rising grocery costs and growing environmental consciousness, New Zealand families are increasingly looking for practical solutions to reduce waste and save money. Recent data shows that over half of New Zealand's food waste consists of vegetables, while households throw away 29 million loaves of bread annually. Competition and Funding Goals Development of the InstaMeal app has been completed and early adopters are welcome to use the app. The students are also exploring sponsorship opportunities and monetisation strategies that maintain the app's accessibility and create sustainable funding. The competition finals are scheduled for late October 2025. The project represents not only technological innovation but also demonstrates how young entrepreneurs can leverage partnerships with established businesses to create meaningful social impact. The partnership between Taradale High School and Incredible Software showcases the potential for educational institutions and tech companies to collaborate on solutions addressing real-world challenges while providing students with invaluable professional experience. About the Teams The Taradale High School Young Enterprise team consists of three dedicated students working to combine environmental consciousness with practical technology solutions. Incredible Software is a 10-person AI development company specialising in intelligent applications for businesses and organisations throughout New Zealand and around the world.
