When current sales tax data isn’t yet available, things like the length of chairlift lines and the level of congestion in City Market indicate to Breckenridge locals how busy a given period of the ski season is.

When it comes to the 2025 spring break, spanning from March to the first couple weeks of April, many locals said those indicators appeared to show this season was slower than others. 

From the standpoint of a cornerstone of Breckenridge’s tourism economy, bars, things felt different this year due to a visitor demographic that seemingly shrunk: college students. Bar staff say generally a program called Outside Life College Trips brings a lot of students, but the groups seemed to be missing this year. 

“It definitely wasn’t as college-based this year,” The Motherloaded Tavern general manager Steve Lua said. “There weren’t those big (rowdy) groups of 20 this year that (usually) come in and are overwhelming.” 

The Gold Pan Saloon owner Chris Butler said while late nights had typical crowds, with some weekends being even busier than weekends before, the absence of the Outside Life groups was felt. He said it was most noticeable during brunch and lunch shifts when it felt like a “ghost town” compared to previous spring breaks. 

The Blue Stag Saloon bartender Rob Verrall said the Outside Life College Trips will book groups for up to around 1,000 students from 2-3 different colleges whose schools’ spring breaks line up. 

“It could be a random Tuesday or Wednesday night and there’d be 200 college kids in here to drink. We did not see that. It didn’t happen at all this year, ” he said. 

Bars said there would be college kids sporadically, but Outside Life College Trips previously brought the bulk of them because it was a way to have a spring break in Breckenridge at a much lesser cost because the company often covers lodging. 

The Breckenridge Tourism Office included a heads up during their season forecast Dec. 17 that this group wasn’t running trips to Breckenridge this year. Director of operations Bill Wishowski said this would account for a loss of 4,000 nights, but booking trends showed the lodging for that time period would be slightly up despite it. 

Revenues across the board were relatively flat or slightly down, according to bartenders and local business owners, who said an influx of families and young adults helped fill in business lost from college students on spring break. 

Lodging industry experts say the timing of Easter is crucial, and this year’s timing is more favorable than last year’s. Historically, Easter falling on the earlier side — last year’s fell on March 31 — causes April lodging to drop, lodging experts say. They say this can create a mentality where people feel skiing is over after the late-spring holiday.

Spring break this year followed a January and February where sales tax was down around 5-6% in Breckenridge, and bars say they felt that. Owner of Ollie’s Pub and Grub Alan Bullock said he’s been noticing the presence of the “weekend warriors” coming up to ski from the Front Range fading both in his bar and the ski hill both this year and last. He said the past two winters have been down, but summer tourism has been steadily growing, with some weeks bringing in more revenue than some weeks during the ski season did. He said he thinks there’s been more recognition around Breckenridge as a summer destination, not just a winter one, and ski pass prices growing could be contributing to some Front Rangers choosing a summer trip to Breckenridge over a winter one.