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Avoriaz February 2016

Avoriaz – 50 years of inventing the future

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Avoriaz is a winter sports resort unlike any other.

Avoriaz is first and foremost about extraordinary human endeavour. • Avoriaz was the dream of a champion Jean

Vuarnet.• Avoriaz was the vision of a developer Gérard

Brémond.• Avoriaz is the ‘great work’ of an architect

Jacques Labro.

Three men under the age of 30 going against the grain of established ideologies.

Visionary entrepreneurs who did away with the conventional principles of a ski resort and pursued their dream with dogged determination of creating a unique destination. • A car-free resort where the streets are snowy

pistes, open only to pedestrians, skiers and horse-drawn sleighs.

• A resort with a timeless architecture. • A resort at the heart of the Portes du Soleil,

a fabulous ski area where “the mountains still rule the roost”.

• A resort now world-famous but which has not lost sight of its original values.

This is the story that we have to tell. It’s a story about dreams, friendships, breaks with the past, celebrations, insane gambles, human destiny and more...

We’ll also reveal the future, a future that drives Avoriaz as much today as it has always done.

The founding fathers have left an indelible mark on the resort’s identity, the things that still today make it a resort ahead of its time. Throughout its development, Avoriaz has drawn its groundbreaking principles to create new things, things never seen before, like Annie Famose’s Village des Enfants.

The Les Dromonts Hotel, the first building to spring up from the mountainside, opened in time for Christmas 1966. Avoriaz was born.

Welcome to Avoriaz, the holiday resort that breaks away from the hustle and bustle of the city, where peace, quiet, fun and escapism are at the heart of everyone’s holidays.

SOMMAIRE1 - Avoriaz: a resort ahead

of its time• A VISION / JEAN VUARNET P. 05

• A CHALLENGE / GÉRARD BREMOND P. 07

• A GROUNDBREAKING ARCHITECT / JACQUES LABRO P. 10

2 - Avoriaz: unique, timeless and sustainable

• A UNIQUE CONCEPT: THE CAR-FREE RESORT P. 15

• AN ISO 14001-CERTIFIED SKI AREA P. 17

• A SUSTAINABLE PROJECT P. 18

3 - Avoriaz: reinventing skiing for 50 years

• THE HEART OF THE PORTES DU SOLEIL P. 21

• ANNIE FAMOSE’S VILLAGE DES ENFANTS P. 24

• AVORIAZ “MULTI-GLISSE” - ALL VARIATIONS OF SNOWSPORTS P. 26

4 - Avoriaz: reaching for the stars• THE NEW HIP DESTINATION P. 31

• THE HORROR AND FANTASY FILM FESTIVAL P. 33

• THE NEW PRODUCTION P. 35

5 - Avoriaz: 50 years of music• AVORIAZ – INSPIRING FROM THE START P. 39

• AVORIAZ SKI AND MUSIC WORLD – THE MAIN MUSICAL EVENTS P. 41

6 - Tomorrow’s world: the 4.0 connected resort P. 42

Your press contacts • Virginie Dupé

Press & promotions, Avoriaz: +33 (0)6 13 30 79 39 [email protected]

• Stéphane Lerendu Resort director, Avoriaz: +33 (0)6 09 08 06 02 [email protected]

1 - Avoriaz: a resort aheadof its time

1968 Brochure

He was 27, and his sporting career was over. Happily, his victory made huge waves in France. He was the first sportsman to make the cover of L’Express magazine, and on his return home to Morzine he was fêted as a hero.

“FASTER, HIGHER, STRONGER”: it’s as if the Olympic motto was coined with him in mind. He came up with a plan to build a car-free resort in the middle of the mountains, at the heart of a unique and inaccessible tract of empty land: AVORIAZ, WHICH IN THE LOCAL PATOIS MEANT “WORTHLESS”.

Jean Vuarnet took on this dream with the purpose of a visionary and a faith that could (and would) move mountains. In the post-war boom years, coming up with a resort that dared to do away with cars to put skiing at the heart of the matter, was to many an insane gamble.

But 50 years on it is this model that continues to hold Avoriaz up as a worldwide inspiration because it is the perfect example of what can happen when a vision, a place and the application of a few unshakeable principles come together. For half a century and for years yet to come, Avoriaz has and will follow this model, embodying season after season a modernity that will never go out of fashion.

Winter sports resorts were once vil lages nestling in the hollow of a valley surrounded by

mountains. Vuarnet’s project turned the idea of the traditional ski resort on its head.

He decided to build the resort in the middle of the ski pistes in places and at altitudes where the snow was best. “I ENVISAGED SNOWFIELDS WITH SKIING INSTALLATIONS (...) RIGHT FROM THE START I REALISED IT WOULD HAVE TO STRETCH ALL THE WAY TO SWITZERLAND”. There are no borders in the mountains, and Avoriaz was to push back the boundaries, extending its ski area into neighbouring Switzerland to create the Portes du Soleil, the first cross-border ski area.

To realise his vision, Jean Vuarnet needed money. He negotiated with Morzine council to acquire land on which to build, and met crowds of businessmen to secure the considerable funding that such a project required. With Louison Bobet, like him a former athlete who had gone into business, he thought he had found it.

In February 1961 he placed an order for the most advanced cable car of the day “WE HAD TO MAKE A SPLASH”, followed by a ski tow and a chairlift to complete the set. But this business relationship didn’t last and Jean Vuarnet found himself on his own and up to his neck in debt, which the sale of his father’s house in Annemasse didn’t come close to paying off.

A V O R I A Z – 5 0 Y E A R S - 0 5

UNE VISION : JEAN VUARNET

A VISION /JEAN VUARNET

On 22 February 1960, Jean Vuarnet became Downhill World Champion

and Olympic Champion at Squaw Valley. Jean Vuarnet invented the “egg” position, the result

of a completely new approach to aerodynamic skiing.

After his victory he went on to give his name to the famous Vuarnet

sunglasses. And even today Americans still call a sunny day

a “Vuarnet day”!

Avoriaz 1967

Even while the first ski lifts were going up, bankruptcy was knocking at the door. It was then that providence intervened: Jean Vuarnet met Robert Brémond, who brought to the table his savoir-faire as a real-estate professional and the funds needed to continue investing in the future Avoriaz.

In March 1963, the Prodains cable car was officially opened. It had taken Jean Vuarnet three years of incessant, hard slog to see the beginnings of his project rising from the ground, during which he never lost faith. Extreme winter weather (ski tows buried under 17 metres of snow, crude machinery paralysed by the cold) made progress difficult. “I CAN TELL YOU, WITHOUT JEAN VUARNET THE RESORT OF AVORIAZ WOULD NOT EXIST. HE BELIEVED

IN IT AND HE WENT ALL-OUT TO GET IT”, Francis Richard, mayor of Morzine from 1971 to 1995.

Vuarnet was firmly in charge, rounding up everyone’s enthusiasm with his charisma, his courage and his permanent presence among his troops. “WE WERE BOTH CLUELESS AND COURAGEOUS. AND COMPLETELY MAD OF COURSE, THERE’S NO DOUBT ABOUT THAT”.

UNE VISION / JEAN VUARNET

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From left to right: Jean Vuarnet, Emile Allais, Jean-Claude Killy

Morzine- The Prodains cable car 1968

A CHALLENGE / GÉRARD BREMONDGérard Brémond was 27. He was

a jazz-lover and performer and had written an article about John Coltrane’s first record. But in 1964

his father Robert Brémond, a Parisian real estate developer, asked him to head up the project to build the ski

resort of Avoriaz, having acquired the concession from Jean Vuarnet

en 1962. “THE MOUNTAINS ARE THE KIND OF THING YOUNGSTERS ARE INTO. IF YOU’RE INTERESTED, I’LL GIVE YOU SOME MONEY THAT

YOU CAN PAY ME BACK LATER. THAT WILL ENABLE YOU TO START UP IN BUSINESS.” Robert Brémond.

Thus began the epic and unusual story of real estate, architecture and human endeavour that was Avoriaz.

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La Falaise January 2015

Gérard began by rejecting the proposed plans as being too conventional, not modern enough and old hat. He wanted to see a bold approach. He wasn’t afraid to take a few risks, and gradually his vision took shape. His first task was to come up with a development plan. How did he do it? Through a mixture of nerve and imagination, innovating in every area. “WHAT MADE AVORIAZ A SUCCESS WAS THAT IT WAS A SUCCESSION OF COMPLETELY CRAZY PROJECTS”, Gérard Brémond.He gave carte blanche to a young iconoclastic architect, Jacques Labro, who was to be joined by Jean-Jacques Orzoni shortly afterwards. Their revolutionary architectural style was totally

different to anything that had come before. He approved their plans, which were not always the most profitable and gave them free rein to develop the project without stifling their creativity. The pyramidal shape of the apartment blocks meant that they would lose out on surface area and meant finding the money to install lifts that would serve very few apart-ments on the upper floors. The decision to build all the apartments with a south-facing aspect and have none on the north side of the blocks again guaranteed money down the drain. “MY APPROACH WAS THE VERY ESSENCE OF UNPROFESSIONAL: NO TESTS OR INVESTIGATIONS WERE CARRIED OUT BEFORE WE WENT AHEAD AND BUILT”, Gérard Brémond.

Morzine council, which owned the land where the resort of Avoriaz was to be built, gave the developer 30 years to complete development on the 80-hectare s ite, but made them responsible for everything, not only the accommodation, ski lifts, shops and businesses and ski school but also the road and network maintenance, lighting, the postal service and all the rest. This meant designing, building and bringing to life an entire town at an altitude of 1,800 metres on a site teetering at the top of a cliff face, which nobody believed was possible. “WHAT I WAS INTERESTED IN AT THE TIME WAS CONCEIVING AN URBANISTIC AND ARCHITECTURAL PROJECT COMPLETELY FROM SCRATCH”, Gérard Brémond.

Avoriaz’s weak point remained its funding shortfall. Any resort under construction will lose money, and the developer has to ensure his operation remains solvent.The solution lay in innovation and daring. In the early 1980s Gérard Brémond launched a new programme, encouraging banks, insurance companies and financial concerns to invest in new apartment blocks which would be managed by him. It worked, and this funding model went on to be copied far and wide.

At the rate of two or three holiday residences a year and with some tempting property acquisition deals on offer Avoriaz began to make itself a name internationally while holding on to the charm and original character of its early days.

Between 2001 and 2009, Pierre & Vacances restructured a large number of apartments (4,100 beds) bringing them together under its wing. In this restructuring scheme, the largest ever seen in an Alpine ski resort, Avoriaz lost 1,283 beds but considerably improved its offering and the level of comfort provided for its customers. In 2011-2012, Avoriaz continued to grow, adding new luxury holiday residences, designed by Jacques Labro in keeping with his architectural style. The facilities and services they feature have kept pace with customers’ increasing demands for well-being. Decorated by Laurence Goardon and Gilles Kerdomarec,

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A CHALLENGE / GÉRARD BREMOND

1972 Brochure

these apartments combine the atmosphere of a “mountain loft apartment” with the feel of a chalet.In 2003, Avoriaz was recognised by the French Ministry of Culture, awarding it Great Realization of 20th century heritage on the basis of its de-velopment plan and the main buildings in the Dromonts and Falaise districts.

“AVORIAZ IS NOW A RESORT WITH AN INTERNATIONAL REPUTATION. (...) BUT AVORIAZ IS SOMEHOW STILL MY BABY: A TROUBLESOME CHILD, AN IMPOSSIBLE ADOLESCENT, AN ENFANT TERRIBLE”, Gérard Brémond.

“IN THIS VENTURE, THE ARCHITECTS WERE NO DOUBT LUCKY ENOUGH TO BE WORKING ALONGSIDE A DEVELOPER WHO WAS AS CRAZY AS THEY WERE”, Chantal Bourreau / Avoriaz l’aventure fantastique.

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GROUPE PIERRE & VACANCES - CENTER PARCSAvoriaz led to the founding of Pierre & Vacances, responsible for two major innovations that have revolutionised the tourism industry: the holiday residence (standardised rental apartments with à-la- carte facilities and services) and the New Property scheme (purchasing an apartment managed by Pierre & Vacances with a guaranteed rental income).Fifty years on, Groupe Pierre & Vacances-Center Parcs is Europe’s number 1 holiday accommodation provider, owning four main brands: Pierre & Vacances, Center Parcs, Adagio Aparthotels and Maeva. It operates 282 sites around Europe totalling 46,000 apartments and houses and has 7.5 million customers in Europe annually.The group is rapidly expanding its development model internationally (a combination of real estate and tourism), particularly in China.

AQUARIAZThe resort’s new real estate projects in 2012 were accompanied by a string of new installations including Aquariaz, a 2,400m² indoor water park designed as a tropical paradise, unique in a mountain setting.More than 1,570 plants (including 183 trees) were planted to create the tropics-in-the-mountains ambiance, inspired by the vegetation growing on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro which can withstand large temperature differences. Because it was inconceivable that these plants would be uprooted from their natural environment, a partnership with a nursery in Thailand was agreed. The exotic surroundings are complemented with a décor or rocks, roots and other sculpted wooden decorations.This water park is above all about relaxation and play. There are three different Worlds where both children and adults can have fun, swim, slide, jump and get an adrenaline kick.And all with an uninterrupted view of the mountains beyond.

A CHALLENGE / GÉRARD BREMOND

Roof facade of Avoriaz

Aquariaz

“WHAT IMPRESSES ME MOST ABOUT HIM IS HIS INDEPENDENCE. HE HAS A FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION IN HIS WAY OF BUILDING THAT I CAN ONLY ENVY,” says Simon Cloutier, an architect who still works with him today at the AAA.

Jacques Labro’s approach is “THE LANDSCAPE BELONGS TO THE ARCHITECTURE, AND THE ARCHITECTURE BELONGS TO THE LANDSCAPE, IDENTIFYING WITH IT”.

The team of architects began by freeing themselves from any regular geometrical figure, placing within an interlacing of skiing routes the buildings, chalets and installations that

were required by the plan or, more importantly, dictated by the topography.Each building, assuming its own unique shape and volumetry, would blend in with the terrain around it, becoming part of its curves and volumes in an expressionist approach that would bring out and accentuate the surrounding landscape. The master plan for the resort, drawn up in 1964, remains still today the permanent marker that enables Avoriaz to reinvent itself with a consistency that shapes each new construction. “ I T WA S T H E A R C H I T E C T U R E T H AT DETERMINED THE BUILDING SPECIFICATIONS”, Jacques Labro.

A GROUNDBREAKING ARCHITECT /

JACQUES LABROIn 1961 Jacques Labro was awarded

the Prix de Rome. He was 26 and had an amazing career as an architect ahead of him, which his encounter with Gérard Brémond

was about to propel into the stratosphere. Shortly to be joined

by Jean-Jacques Orzoni, with whom he would go on to establish

the Atelier d’Architecture d’Avoriaz, he was devise, design and build

a new resort, the ideal leisure destination, starting with a blank sheet of paper: 209,000 square metres to be constructed, with

no rules to follow except for the principle of the car-free resort that

Jean Vuarnet had come up with.

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UN CHALLENGE / GÉRARD BREMOND

Construction of the Dromonts Hotel and Mélèzes Residence 1966

Avoriaz 1976

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A GROUNDBREAKING ARCHITECT / JACQUES LABRO

This living architecture, which Jacques Labro describes as part of the ‘organic’ architectural movement in the tradition of Franck Lloyd Wright and Aval Aalto, went against the previous models and those built in the same period, such as the neo-rustic style that was to dominate elsewhere.As Chantal Bourreau pointed out in her book l ’Aventure Fanstatique, Avoriaz’s urban development plan revolutionised the urban development of the mountains, inventing the skiing of the 21st century: a car-free ski-city in which the roads are ski pistes and where skiers can get to the ski lifts on skis. Jacques Labro reinvented the conventional concept of the centre and did away with the single snow front.

Fifty years later, Avoriaz still embodies this modern urban development and architecture, and it is still avant-garde.

The buildings are arranged to take advantage of the shape of the terrain, making the most of the view and the sunshine and allowing the surrounding mountains to play their part: backing on to a rock face at the bottom of a mountainside, incorporated onto hillocks, rising from the plateau, the alternation eliminates

any feeling of repetition. The buildings are designed to create harmonies between the natural environment and their architecture according to the creed laid down by Jacques Labro, that “EVERYTHING SHOULD LOOK SIMILAR BUT NOTHING SHOULD LOOK THE SAME”. In short, as it is with nature.The roofs follow the lines of the landscape, creating a fifth facade.

Sosna Residence - roofs that retain the snow

Plateau chairlit 1969


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In Avoriaz, wood is omnipresent. This architectural and colour mimesis extends to the choice of colours, the wooden shingles being left in their rough state to take on colours ranging from black to silvery and including an orangey-red like the colour of tree bark. “THIS WAS WHY WE CHOSE RED CEDAR, A WOOD THAT HAS AN ORANGE COLOUR TO START WITH BUT AS WE SAW IN CANADA TAKES ON A RANGE OF VERY DIFFERENT GREYISH COLOURS DEPENDING ON ITS EXPOSURE TO THE SUN”, Gérard Brémond.The use of red cedar worked well with the idea of blending in with the surroundings and

prevented the buildings becoming dull by echoing the region’s architectural tradition too closely.Snow tends to cling to the inclined façades, helping to unite each building with its natural surroundings and encouraging the soft white blanket to cover the man-made shapes too. “WHAT STRIKES ME ABOUT THE MOUNTAINS IN WINTER IS THE POWER OF TRANSFORMATION THAT SNOW HAS ON THE LANDSCAPE. IT HAS AS MUCH OF AN EFFECT ON THE ARCHITECTURE... AS LONG AS THE ARCHITECTURE LENDS ITSELF TO IT”, Jacques Labro. As a result, the resort in its entirety appears to merge and disappear

into the mountainside. Over time it has taken on a patina, but it has never remained the same.

Since 2007, a model of the resort and Les Dromonts Hotel has been on display at the Cité de l’Architecture et du Patrimoine architectural museum in Paris. In 2002, Jacques Labro was inducted into the prestigious Académie d’Architecture. Still working at the Atelier d’Architecture d’Avoriaz, he is the guarantor of the Avoriaz philosophy, continuing to design the new buildings alongside Simon Cloutier.

Drawings - Jaques Labro

INTERIOR ARCHITECTUREJacques Labro’s approach to designing the interiors involved the same desire to break up spaces and create a distinctive baroque feel, designed both to please and to be practical. The accommodation units are designed as living spaces, arranged to echo the rhythm of the skier’s day. Each apartment opens out onto the mountains with multiple panoramic views over the snowfields, the windows playing the role of picture frames that highlight the beauty of nature laid out before them “LEADING THE VIEWER ON A JOURNEY OF DISCOVERY TOWARDS THE LIGHT AND THE VIEW”, Jacques Labro. There are half-levels, openings in the concrete covering giving the sensation of space and perspective, and flights of steps and gangways that create the same feeling of freedom as that generated by the exterior architecture. Lifestyle changes that have come about over time have required larger social spaces. The interiors of whole apartment blocks have been redesigned and altered. And the new constructions are perfectly suited to today’s lifestyle while remaining in harmony with Avoriaz’s identity, one that will never go out of fashion.

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THE DROMONTS HOTELLes Dromonts Hotel was the first building to be built, and its opening at Christmas 1966 signalled the birth of Avoriaz. The handles on the entrance doors – 6 on the left and 7 on the right – serve as a reminder. It is its emblem, its manifesto, seemingly rising out of the ground and thrusting into the sky. Its fan-shaped design opens onto a panoramic view. Façades and roof sections blend together in elegant broken lines that mould into the hill against which it stands. The interior matches the exterior for originality with its recesses, projections, portholes, perspectives, giving it a very nineteen sixties feel. The prestigious venue of the resort’s famous Horror and Fantasy Film Festival, Les Dromonts once hosted the aristocracy of the international film industry (see chapter 11). Avant-garde, baroque, futuristic: like Avoriaz itself, Les Dromonts is above all TIMELESS. This four-star hotel, now run by the Sibuet family group, perpetuates the resort’s blend of tradition and modernity. The Sibuet have revisited the hotel’s classic nineteen sixties style, featuring tangerine capsule-style egg chairs by Eerio Aarnio, the iconic Charles and Ray Eames chair, tables and chairs by Charlotte Perriand and Pierre Margara wood sculptures. Local Morzine slate is featured in all the bathrooms. The fabrics used for the curtains, armchairs and sofas are bespoke creations in tangerine and purple, turquoise and violet, and camel and tangerine. The effect as a whole creates a cosy, warm and snug ambiance. Dromonts Hotel

2 - Avoriaz: unique, timeless and sustainable

1967 Avoriaz

A UNIQUE CONCEPT: THE CAR-FREE

RESORTThese days, urban centres are

becoming no-go areas for cars and pedestrians are claiming

them back, creating spaces where walking, well-being and free-

flowing movement are the order of the day. But in the early 1960s,

in the days of the all-powerful automobile, devising

a car-free resort was an aberration, a deliberate act of madness,

a genius idea.

“EVERY SO-CALLED MATURE AND COMPETENT PERSON TOLD ME

THAT IT WAS MADNESS TO WANT TO BUILD A CAR-FREE RESORT.

I WAS GOING AGAINST EVERY SOCIOLOGICAL AND URBAN

PRINCIPLES, PRINCIPLES THAT WERE SUPPOSEDLY SET

IN STONE”, Gérard Brémond.

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As it has been during every stage of its construction and evolution: as it has been at every stage of its construction and evolution. That was the gamble that Gérard Brémond and Jacques Labro took, and they came up trumps. “AVORIAZ 1800 IS A ‘HOLIDAY RESORT’ THAT HAS ELIMINATED THE DRAWBACKS OF URBAN LIFE, IN PARTICULAR THE NOISE, THE NERVOUS TENSION AND THE AIR POLLUTION. (...) AVORIAZ 1800 IS THE ONLY MAJOR FRENCH RESORT TO BE CAR-FREE”, Atelier d’Architecture d’Avoriaz)

The resort was structured to make it easy to get around, with the master plan enabling people to get from A to B on skis.People would arrive by cable car or by road. From there, the streets would form a pristine pedestrian walkway along which the tourists

would enter another world: a peaceful, gentle, soothing refuge. Making use of the terrain, these streets would become ski pistes taking skiers to the ski lifts. For pedestrians, public lifts were planned to connect the different districts and indoor passageways would be built, hugging the terrain like strips of terraced fields. They had the advantage of making journeys faster, easier and sheltered from the elements. This way of getting around seems obvious today, but it is testament to the developer’s inventiveness in believing in this concept of the car-free resort and making it not only environmentally friendly and pleasant but also practical. Avoriaz continues to incorporate each new building into this pioneering original layout. Today, despite the fact that the resort continues to grow apace, every apartment building is less than 10 minutes from the centre.

Avoriaz covered with snow

Snow was no longer something to be shoved aside by snowplough, i t had become a benevolent friend, enabling people to get around and forming the white carpet over which the horse-drawn sleighs glided, taking holidaymakers on their enchanting and romantic way.The first environmentally friendly ski resort was born. Gone was the city. These were new and exciting surroundings: the holiday could begin.

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A UNIQUE CONCEPT: THE CAR-FREE RESORT

SLEIGHS DRAWN BY REINDEERAs soon as the resort was open, Avoriaz brought over reindeer from Lapland, accompanied by a Lapp, to pull the sleighs that were the only means of transport. “IN MY OPINION THIS SCANDINAVIAN ANIMAL WAS THE PERFECT SYMBOL TO ASSOCIATE WITH THE IMAGE OF THE CAR-FREE RESORT”, Gérard Brémond. Following a triumphant publicity tour of France’s major cities, including a procession down the Champs- Elysées (the developer demonstrating his innate flair for marketing), the reindeer arrived in Avoriaz. They acclimatised perfectly to their new home, even started to breed. However the hills around the resort proved too much for them and eventually they were replaced by sturdy Jura horses. The horses still today plod still today plod the streets tirelessly transporting and promenading holidaymakers.

1967 Avoriaz

Mossettes- French and swiss chairlift

100% ski-in, ski-out

AN ISO 14001- CERTIFIED SKI AREA

At the 2012 World Snow Awards in London, Avoriaz won the

prize for the most innovative ski resort in terms of sustainable

development. This distinction came in recognition not only of a resort

that incorporated the conservation policies.

As a result, SERMA, the company that operates the ski area, has been

certified ISO 14001 since 2007.

A V O R I A Z – 5 0 Y E A R S - 1 7


ENERGYOn the pistes, the grooming schedule is designed to improve groomer productivity and the groomer operators are trained to drive economically. Fuel consumption is carefully monitored and warm-up times have been reduced. Electric snowmobiles are becoming increasingly common.New bu i ld ings comply wi th HQE (h igh environmental quality) standards and older ones are refurbished to make them more economical (with new door and window frames, radiators etc.).Energy-efficient lighting is being installed.

WASTEWaste policy aims to reduce waste at source. A sustainable procurement process is in place and preference is given to recycled products. Waste is sorted and processed through the appropriate channels. Lastly, the entire ski area is equipped with recycling bins for use by the skiers.

SNOWMAKINGWaste-water filtration plants have been built.The water is sourced from the natural environment using high-altitude retaining reservoirs fed by natural catchment basins, and snowmaking takes place only where it is required. All of the water taken from the catchment basin is returned at the end of the season.

THE STASH This area for freeride and freestyle fanatics, created in the middle of a forest in 2008, is

emblematic of the environmentally friendly skiing envisioned by the brains behind the concept, Jake Burton. All the features are built using recycled fallen dead trees. In the middle of the forest, at the point where the three pistes for different abilities meet, there is a wooden hut that spreads the word about initiatives designed to limit environmental impact and the safety rules.

FLORA AND FAUNA TOOAvoriaz also takes care of the ski area by conducting environmental impact studies in consultation with the Office National des Forêts, the French Hunting Federation and mountain farmers’ associations.These are designed to establish the initial state of the site and check that there are no rare or protected species or sensitive environments in the area. They then determine the effects of the development and any initiatives that can be introduced to reduce these effects or even eliminate them completely.The dates of any development work are scheduled to avoid the nesting periods of protected and rare species.All the earthwork sites and pistes are reseeded with seeds suited to the local conditions. Ski lifts that can be hazardous to certain species of bird are equipped with cable markers, and electricity cables are buried.These initiatives have, among other things, helped protect young trees growing in the Forêt des Lindarets, led to the restoration of Capercaillie habitats at Les Crozats and have even enabled a local farmer to hold on to his ‘Abondance’ AOC certification thanks to appropriate reseeding of the Chaux Fleurie piste.

The site’s other main benefit is its exposure to the sun, unlike other ski resorts which are generally huddled in the bottom of a valley. This has made it possible to develop an urban ecology that makes use of its south-facing “front side”, where all the living spaces are built, with its north-facing “back side” given over to ancillary rooms and passageways. This exposure to the sun and natural light makes it possible to make significant savings.

The main technological innovations introduced were the invention of snow traps to boost the insulation properties of buildings, balconies that are not an integral part of the structure to avoid creating thermal bridges, and exterior insulation.

Since 2011, a dual-energy wood/electricity central heating plant has powered a heating network that supplies 11 new holiday residences and the Aquariaz water park with heating and domestic hot water. Located at an altitude of 1,820 metres, the wood-fired boiler has a power output of 2,000 kW. It is run on wood pellets, with a back-up electricity supply supplementing the output when the weather is particularly cold.In 2011 a certified energy-efficient holiday residence was opened, designed to limit its energy consumption to around 70 kWh/m²/year.

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A SUSTAINABLE PROJECT

Avoriaz was revolutionary in its concept of the integrated, car-free resort, and right from the start the

resort was no less so in its commitment to sustainable development, at a

time when the green movement was taking its first faltering steps.

CONSTRUCTION DURABLE

70s interior

This is 44% less than the maximum permitted by the thermal regulations, thanks to a panoply of technological and architectural features: extra insulation, triple glazing, double-flow ventilation, glass walls that preheat incoming air, and so on.For this project, Groupe Pierre & Vacances was designated winner in the ‘new building construction projects’ category in a regional competition for energy-efficient buildings organised by the regional delegation of the Agency for the Environment and Energy Management, Rhône-Alpes Regional Council and the Regional Housing Agency.

In 2008, Avoriaz started up a think tank on good practice in sustainable development that brought together the most environmentally friendly resorts from all over the world.

At the World Snow Awards in London on 31 October 2012, Avoriaz won the prize for the most innovative ski resort in terms of sustainable development, beating Jackson Hole and Paradiski to the top spot.

In 2016 the Résidence Amara (Pierre & Vacances Premium) was awarded Clef Verte certification, joining 50 other Pierre & Vacances Clef Verte properties. The CLEF VERTE certificate is the first international quality certificate awarded to environmentally friendly holiday accommodation. The scheme, run by the French office of the

Foundation for Environmental Education in Europe, certifies that applicant properties are pursuing a responsible environmental approach. The qualifying criteria are drawn up by a jury and apply internationally to all types of accommodation. To qualify for certification, the accommodation

must satisfy the requirements in 7 areas: environmental policy, customer awareness, water, waste and energy management, responsible procurement and improving quality of life.

A V O R I A Z – 5 0 Y E A R S - 1 9

A SUSTAINABLE PROJECT

Pierre & Vacances Premium Amara residence*****

3 - Avoriaz: reinventing skiing for 50 years

Riglet Park

As he explored the area on touring skis, Jean Vuarnet saw that it would be possible to bring together in a single ski area the widely scattered wonders of the 12 French and Swiss ski resorts that know no boundaries.Vuarnet saw the potential of these mountain pastures, nothing more than fields where the herds were brought up to graze in summer, dreaming of installing ski lifts on these virgin slopes that would bring the skiers flocking.

He invited his friends Emile Allais and Jean-Claude Killy along to explore the area and ask for their invaluable input, and in 1964 he assembled a group of friends in the cellar bar of the inn at Champéry to discuss their collective dream and make it come true. This would become the Portes du Soleil, after the col looming high above them. Thus began an incredible adventure

that today brings together 600 kilometres of skiing and 195 ski lifts in one of the largest and the most varied ski area in the world. “AS LUCK WOULD HAVE IT, THIS REGION WAS ONE OF HIGH MOUNTAIN PASTURES. (...) WIDE-OPEN SPACES THAT ALREADY FORMED BEAUTIFUL, NATURAL PISTES. I THINK THAT THE PRESENCE OF THE FOREST ADDS TO THE VARIETY OF THE TERRAIN AND THE BEAUTY OF THE LOCATIONS”, Jean Vuarnet.That same year they presented a giant 1:10,000-scale model three by three metres at the Exposition Internationale in Lausanne. For its day it was an impressive way of advertising and made a big splash, setting out all the planned connections in fine detail.

In 1968 the Swiss and French sides of the area were connected, giving skiers access to the legendary “Swiss Wall” whose impressive gradient (50%) has fascinated generations since.

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AVORIAZ AU CŒUR DU DOMAINE DES PORTES DU SOLEIL

THE HEART OF THE PORTES

DU SOLEILIn Avoriaz skiers can ski around

the resort. This is the concept of the car-free resort thought up by

Jean Vuarnet. But the choice of the resort’s location was determined

above all by the amazing ski area of which Avoriaz forms the epicentre.

While the first-generation ski resorts marked out whatever pistes

they could on the surrounding mountainsides, Avoriaz was built

right in among the mountains, pistes and countryside that are the

very soul of a ski resort.

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THE HEART OF THE PORTES DU SOLEIL

And in 1986 the Avoriaz-Châtel link opened up the “Tour des Portes du Soleil”, a full day’s skiing around the domain featuring an incredibly diverse range of mountainsides, slopes, snow conditions, atmospheres and gastronomic delights.

To Jean Vuarnet’s mind, the Portes du Soleil was part and parcel of the Avoriaz dream. Having developed a liking for vast open spaces on his travels around Europe and the vast

untouched territories of America, he wanted to get away from the idea of each piste having its own ski lift to develop a kind of skiing that was about exploring and having fun in harmony with the natural world around.And here, in addition to the hundreds of kilometres of pistes there is a host of couloirs, tours, peaks and side valleys popular with skiers, who love to swap notes about their favourite “hidden corners”. The Vallée de la Manche, the descent of the Grand Paradis,

Pointe de Vorlaz, Nandinkerne – the list goes on... And despite the expansion that the ski area has seen, these descents remain just some of the vast number of off-piste trails that open up off-the-beaten-track skiing far from the ski lifts, allowing the Portes du Soleil to remain a magnificent and immutable snowsports paradise.In the Portes du Soleil the mountains still rule the roost, and that is what holidaymakers love about it: skiing around the Grand Paradis and

Le Fornet in front of Les Dents du Midi

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THE HEART OF THE PORTES DU SOLEIL

DYNASTAR’S 50TH BIRTHDAY AVORIAZ SKITo mark the resort’s 50th birthday, Dynastar has come up with a special limited-edition ski, producing 200 pairs of men’s and 200 pairs of women’s skis. The men’s model is the Speed Zone 9. Incorporating racing technology and developed for hard snow conditions, the brand new SPEED ZONE 9 CARBON, delivers a new level of comfort, power and precision with its very versatile shape aimed at intermediate to advanced-level skiers.For women, they have released the completely new Dynastar INTENSE 10, an on-piste ski designed for good and very good energetic skiers looking for a high-tech ski that will help them improve.These two models of ski boast brand new POWERDRIVE INSIDE active suspension technology, which functions like a sports car chassis. The design is 100% inspired by the Avoriaz 50th birthday visual identity.

THE ECOLE DE SKI IS 50 TOO!While the Dromonts Hotel was opening in winter 66, the arrival of the first holidaymakers meant that expertise was need to help them get out skiing, in other words to learn to ski. Jean Vuarnet turned to one of his right-hand men, Edmond Denis, a Parisian who had had climbed Aconcagua and made his home in Morzine. Edmond recruited a crowd of young instructors, not all men, applying an innovative approach to running his little outfit, one big happy family. “JEAN WORKED REALLY HARD HELPING US GET THE SKI SCHOOL GOING. HE CAME UP WITH THE NEW INSTRUCTION METHOD, DEVELOPED WITH GEORGES JOUBERT”, Edmond Denis.The Ecole de Ski Français d’Avoriaz was born, with some big names from the French world of skiing at its helm: Claude Pernet, Jean-Claude Page, Joseph Ecoeur, Didier Grandperret and Jean-Paul Vaudaine helped the school grow until it employed more than 300 instructors. The ‘red jerseys’ of ESF are still today at the cutting edge of ski and snowsports instruction in all its forms: freeride, snowboard, cross country, touring, snowshoeing, nordic and Afghan walking, biathlon, and not forgetting skiing for the disabled.

gliding through the forest for 10 km without seeing a single chairlift; taking a break at Marius’ restaurant to enjoy a plate of charcuterie while looking across at the Dents Blanches towering above the fir trees; escaping to Torgon and looking straight down on Lake Geneva, 1,500 metres below!

In 2013, SERMA, the ski lift operator for Morzine and Avoriaz, opened a new “3S” lift connecting Morzine-Les Prodains with Avoriaz. This is the Rolls Royce of cable cars, costing a cool 25 million euros and comprising twelve 35-person cabins carrying 2,000 skiers an hour from end to end in 4 minutes and 20 seconds.

Today, his visionary project of 1964 continues to grow, with new connections springing up

(like the Châtel link opened in 2016 and the planned connection between the centre of Morzine and Avoriaz), while the skiing remains as varied as ever.

Pasture chalets in Switzerland

ESF Avoriaz

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LE CŒUR DES PORTES DU SOLEIL

ANNIE FAMOSE’S VILLAGE

DES ENFANTSWorld champion, World Cup winner in the slalom, two Olympic medals:

Annie Famose is a member of the 1960s generation of French skiers.

Annie hails from the Pyrenees, but switched allegiance to the

Alps when she became involved in promoting the new French ski

resorts including Avoriaz, where she came to live in 1974,

opening her first sports shop with Isabelle Mir.

The snowboard village of the Village des Enfants

5 hectare beginners’ area in

the center of the resort

In December 1975, with Isabelle Mir, Annie Famose started up the Village des Enfants. At the time, the concept was unique in France. “WE BOTH REALISED THAT SKI INSTRUCTION WAS NOT TAILORED TO CHILDREN; IT WAS SIMPLY A RE-HASH OF THE WAY ADULTS WERE TAUGHT”, Annie Famose).

The Village des Enfants concept is original in two respects: • Innovative teaching methods: to encourage

pupils to adopt the right stance to ski down the slope, the instructors don’t explain the theory but put them in a situation in which they adopt it naturally. Instruction becomes a game, with cute figures, snow features and hoops dotted around to make skiing fun.

• The children are looked after for the whole day, with fun and games laid on both before and after the skiing in a large purpose-built chalet in the middle of the resort. This arrangement enables the parents to make the most of their skiing, with their children safely ensconced in the “Village” for the whole day. “DROPPING OFF AND PICKING UP THEIR CHILDREN THROUGHOUT THE DAY DIDN’T MAKE THE PARENTS’ LIFE ANY EASIER”, Annie Famose.

The Village has built a reputation on its ability to adapt to each child’s individual pace, with indoor activities on offer once the skier is tired, an afternoon nap in the nursery for the youngest

ones, lesson times compatible with parents’ lesson times, and so on.

Located right in the centre of the car-free resort, for younger children the Village des Enfants boasts a 5-hectare learning zone with moguls, slides, mini runs, colourful lanes, etc.

For the older kids (the Village takes children from the age of three right up to teens aged 16), the instructors make use of the vast Portes du Soleil ski area.

The Village des Enfants was the first ski school to offer freeride courses for children, in safe surroundings off-piste but near the pistes. In addition to providing ski instruction, the Village concentrates on keeping pace with the main trends in skiing and snowboarding and teaching the children to ski on natural terrain.

By providing play areas with park features for children to perfect and practise their freestyle techniques in safe surroundings the Village des Enfants encourages a broader, fun and innovative practice of skiing.

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ANNIE FAMOSE’S VILLAGE DES ENFANTS

Une pédagogie basée sur la mise en situation

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AVORIAZ “MULTI-GLISSE” - ALL

VARIATIONS OF SNOWSPORTS

Avoriaz has never stopped innovating and has consistently

been introducing holidaymakers to exciting new ways to spend their time.

Today the resort has the widest range of dedicated freeride,

backcountry and freestyle facilities of any resort.

: JEAN VUARNET

La Cabane du Stash

The Stash

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AVORIAZ “MULTI-GLISSE” - ALL VARIATIONS OF SNOWSPORTS

As early as 1989 (10 and 11 April), Avoriaz was the first resort to organise a multi-snowsports competition. “Avoriaz versus the Rest of the World” took place on a 300-metre-long piste featuring moguls and jumps, with entrants competing on snowboards, monoskis and skis! This was France’s first ever slopestyle competition - complete with eighties fluorescent ski suits!

In 1995, Annie Famose opened the Snowboard Village, a revolution in the little world of snowsports.

In 2001 Avoriaz opened the first “snowcross” runs, five pistes for different abilities that were ungroomed but marked out and made safe, giving skiers and boarders access to all the thrills of freeride and powder snow without the dangers. The most popular of these runs was the Canyon piste, a beautiful run carved down the mountainside, hugging the natural contours of the Canyon du Pschott in the Fornet sector. With banked turns, bowls, domes and more, it was an amazing run but easy to ski for all the family, creating an immediate feeling of escape.

In the same vein, in 2003 the Village des Enfants became the first ski school to offer freeride courses for children, in safe off-piste areas between the pistes.

2008 marked a new turning point, with Avoriaz’s best idea yet: The Stash, Europe’s first giant eco-friendly snowpark (hailed by CNN in 2014 as the best snowsports facility in the world). A new concept in snowparks brought over from the Californian ski resort of North Star, it was developed by none other than Jake Burton.

Jake Burton’s philosophy was to create a space in the middle of a forest offering a mix of freeride and freestyle snowsports facilities.

There are three pistes for different abilities running through the vast Forêt des Lindarêts, dotted with 80 wooden features hidden all along the route that you discover by chance as you explore the ‘secret passageways’. What’s more, you have to descend the piste several times before you find all the hidden features, which are ‘stashed’ away.The Stash has become one of Europe’s top riding destinations, for both snowboarders and skiers and also for schools, and it has given rise to a new approach to ski and snowboard instruction.On the back of this success, in December 2016 Avoriaz is launching a development plan to create a new fun zone in the next three years: Lil’Stash, a dedicated junior Stash for children aged 6 to 14 with age-specific features, layout and decor.

The Stash

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The zone is in the Proclou sector and covers a landscape of natural side valleys, part of which is forested.

Like its big brother The Stash, Lil’Stash will boast a series of features made of snow and wood: a mini boarder cross, a snake run, an XS-sized kicker, woops, a zone of slides and fun boxes, a zone of ‘snow surfaces’ for practising turns, a wooden bridge and an undulating forest zone.The layout and décor, featuring the special Stash character, ‘Shreddie’ will be an important part of Lil’Stash. Does he have any family, friends or enemies? Where does he live? Why is he concerned about the environment?All of the narrative elements: signage, totem pole, characters, hut, bridge, etc. will be made of wood.

Burton Snowboards and Annie Famose’s Village des Enfants joined forces to create a snowboard tuition method tailored to tiny tots – France’s first Learn-to-Snowboard programme – at Avoriaz.The programme is essentially based on using the Riglet Park, a fun zone devised to introduce children as young as three to the delights of snowboarding.The Riglet Park is designed to guide the kids down little hills on miniature rails and over tailored features, enabling them to acquire the right reflexes to maintain stability and carve their first turns.The children benefit from the Burton Riglet System, a little lead on a reel attached to the

front or back of the board. This enables the instructor to guide the children along easily, controlling their direction and speed and enabling them to complete the exercises in quick succession. The children progress rapidly thanks to the use of specialised snowboarding teaching techniques based on a specific learning method that has proved effective in the snowparks that Burton has built in the US. This concept is applied in addition to the teaching principles developed by Annie Famose at the Village des Enfants over more than 35 years: learning through play.This winter, the Riglet Park will be open to the public and all ski schools on a permanent basis on Place Jean Vuarnet. The Ecole du Ski Français d’Avoriaz will also be offering introductory snowboarding courses next winter. Avoriaz is THE snowboarders’ resort: 20% of its snowsports visitors are boarders, a proportion similar to that found in North American resorts.

“La Chapelle” snowpark

The Stash

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AVORIAZ HAS ALWAYS BEEN AN INNOVATOR IN THE DISCIPLINE AND TODAY OFFERS MORE SNOWBOARDING FACILITIES THAN ANYWHERE ELSE:• The Stash and its little brother, Lil’Stash • 2 superpipes, one built to international standards and the other

a mini-superpipe. These have disappeared from most ski resorts because they are costly to run.

• The Burton Kids Parkway featuring educational signage teaching younger children how to get to grips safely with the different features, how to slide, how to take to the air, to stance to adopt to keep their balance, how to fall safely, the importance of keeping a distance from the boarder in front, and more.

• Riglet Park (see page.• La Chapelle Snowpark, with lines of features designed for different

abilities (green, blue and red).• The Arare Snowpark for experts, which has hosted lots of

competitions.• 5 snowcross runs.

The Stash

4 - Avoriaz: reaching for the stars

Sylvie Vartan and Johnny Halliday

Right from the start, Avoriaz was to become and remain the darling of the media, due not only to its many points of interest but also its innovative communications policy. The developer was keen to raise the resort’s profile quickly, and this was to reach its acme with the Horror and Fantasy Film Festival. Avoriaz became the first ski resort to make use of event marketing.

“WE HAD NO ADVERTISING BUDGET, SO WE CAME UP WITH THE CONCEPT OF REAL ESTATE AND TOURISM-BASED PUBLIC RELATIONS, INSPIRED DIRECTLY BY ST TROPEZ. WE DECIDED TO COPY ST TROPEZ BY ATTRACTING PROMINENT CELEBRITIES, LURING THEM HERE WITH THE THINGS THAT MADE US STAND OUT. IN OUR PUBLICITY, WE MADE A LOT OF THE HISTORY OF THE RESORT AND ITS ARCHITECTURE”, Gérard Brémond. In January 1967, the official opening of Avoriaz was featured on the evening television news.

A jazz and film fan, Gérard Brémond began to rub shoulders with the jet set. His address book was soon full of showbiz names, enabling him to entice film, pop and sports stars along. In Les Dromonts, Régine Desforges, who had not yet written her famous novel La Bicyclette bleu, opened the first “mini-drugstore”, selling mainly books. Jacques Dessange was the first hairdresser there. The great fashion designer Rozier designed the resort staff uniforms, making the staff look as if they were straight

out of a musical comedy. Castel and Régine laid on crazy party nights at the Roc Club, the night club in the basement of the Dromonts Hotel.“WE FELT LIKE PIONEERS; WE WERE BUILDING SOMETHING UNIQUE. WE ALSO DID A LOT OF PARTYING”, Régine Desforges.

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THE NEW HIP DESTINATION

Avoriaz opened to the public at Christmas 1966. Two hundred and

eighty excited guests thronged into the Dromonts Hotel with the first

media teams hot on their heels, lured there by the rather

far-fetched story of a new car-free ski resort in the middle of nowhere.

The arrival of the reindeer was covered in a news feature

by the Journal de Paris on 21 December 1966.

LA NOUVELLE DESTINATION À LA MODE

Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin

Avoriaz very quickly became the place to be. By inviting “all of Paris” along, Gérard Brémond turned the place into the “St Tropez des neiges”, setting the resort on the road to success.Brigitte Bardot quickly treated Avoriaz like a film set, becoming a regular in the resort. She was followed by Serge Gainsbourg with Jane Birkin, Anouk Aimée in between films, Claude Lelouch (who bought an apartment) and a host of others. Johnny Hallyday and

Nathalie Wood, straight from Hollywood, were seen together on a snowmobile... The crème de la crème of the showbiz world came to spend winter in Avoriaz, followed by the media (Jour de France published an extensive celebrity photo feature at the resort on 5 February 1970). Thanks to profiles, articles and television programmes Avoriaz had arrived, and soon a film festival would bring it to the world’s attention...

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THE NEW HIP DESTINATION

Brigitte Bardot

Nathalie Wood and Johnny Hallyday

THE HORROR AND FANTASY FILM

FESTIVALAvoriaz was on its way and the

resort, a star studded haunt, was starting to make a name for itself. But that wasn’t enough for Gérard

Brémond, who wanted blanket media coverage for his resort.

“LIONEL CHOUCHAN (PROMO 2000) SUGGESTED THE IDEA OF A FILM FESTIVAL, ON THE THEME OF

HORROR AND FANTASY. LIONEL CHOUCHAN WAS VERY GOOD AT FINDING THE RIGHT DIRECTORS

AND PROMINENT ACTORS TO MAKE UP THE JURY AND ATTRACT

THE TV STATIONS AND ALL THE PRESS”, Gérard Brémond.

But what was it that turned a small, low-budget event in a recently opened ski resort into France’s

second biggest film festival just behind Cannes, bringing Avoriaz

into the spotlight all over the world?

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It was a big gamble. In the early 1970s the horror and fantasy genre was in its infancy and there was no reason to think it had the potential to be a success. But Gérard Brémond liked the idea, and with Avoriaz he had already proved that he liked to innovate, stick his neck out and take risks. “I DIDN’T KNOW THE RESORT, BUT WHEN I FIRST WENT THERE IN 1972 I WAS IMMEDIATELY STRUCK BY THE SURROUNDINGS, ITS SCIENCE FICTION FEEL, THE BUILDINGS LIKE ROCKS AND THE WAY IT WAS ILLUMINATED. THE HORROR GENRE FITTED THE RESORT’S IMAGE”, Lionel Chouchan, general manager of the festival and president of Promo 2000, today known as Hopscotch.

Like pioneers, his team set off in search of well-made films, and over 20 years they watched thousands of films from all over the world, seeking out the gems that would be presented to an audience that was become ever more numerous. But for the first festival, Avoriaz was dealt a lucky hand. By showing – in addition to three Italian and four other American productions) – the directorial début of a young American film maker, the gripping story of a truck unremittingly chasing down a man in an attempt to kill him, the festival entered the annals of cinema history. “Duel” by Steven Spielberg was awarded the Grand Prix.

For the week of the festival every TV channel was jostling for space, broadcasting programmes live from Avoriaz. Magazine programmes, entertainment shows, news bulletins: they all wanted in on the act, transporting endless truckloads of equipment to the top of a mountain in sometimes difficult conditions, and featuring guests who had in some cases made the trip especially from Paris. For the entire week, Yves

Mourousi presented the TF1 lunchtime news from a desk made of snow in front of the tourist office. Japanese TV channels sent teams to cover the event, which was very big in Asia.

Hundreds of hours were broadcast – not just television but radio too, and countless press articles covered every aspect of the Avoriaz Festival for an audience all over the world, singing the resort’s praises.

AN INCREDIBLE LINE-UP OF WINNERS AND JURY MEMBERSAfter “Duel” and Spielberg in 1973 came “Soylent Green” by Richard Fleischer and Brian de Palma’s “Phantom of the Paradise”. Other winners included David Lynch (“Elephant Man” and “Blue Velvet”), George Miller (“Mad Max”), James Cameron (“Terminator”) and David Cronenberg (“Dead Ringers”). Many of their careers were launched at Avoriaz by films that would become famous all over the world. These were horror and fantasy films of exceptional quality that transcended the genre and have since gone on to become all-time classics.For the first time, the members of the jury were not just film makers but also writers (Alain Robbe-Grillet, Romain Gary, Françoise Sagan, Eugène Ionesco, Jorge Semprun et al.), singers (such as Serge Gainsbourg, Johnny Hallyday, Henri Salvador, Léo Ferré, Julien Clerc, Georges Moustaki, Charles Aznavour and

Jane Birkin) as well as directors (including Michelangelo Antonioni, Steven Spielberg, Brian De Palma, Agnès Varda, Claude Lelouch and René Clément) and actors (such as Jeanne Moreau, Alain Delon, Michael Lonsdale, Thierry Lhermitte, Jean Rochefort, Pierre Richard and Sophie Marceau). This mix of genres and celebrities of every persuasion was “A RECIPE THAT WENT ON TO CREATE THE BEST COMPETITION JURIES EVER ASSEMBLED”, Lionel Chouchan.

THE HORROR AND FANTASY FILM FESTIVAL

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On the contrary, it was high time it shouted loud and clear about the modern approach of its founders’ visionary project and highlighted Avoriaz’s place at the top of the winter sports resort league.

From the early 2000s onwards, Avoriaz began quietly pushing aside the kind of publicity that had brought it to the world’s attention but had glossed over its image as a ski resort.

The f i rst th ing i t had to do was amaze holidaymakers with the resort’s natural merits, in other words to get back to basics and spread the word about the resort’s selling points, the ones that the pioneering founders had come up with.

As a result, in all its communication (brochures, website, press, etc.) the resort has made much of its “identity markers”: • a pedestrianised resort, 100% ski-in, ski-out• unique architecture in a stunning, snow-sure

setting• the unique teaching methods at the Village

des Enfants, right in the heart of the village• its position right in the middle (and not at

one end) of the Portes du Soleil ski area, the extensive domain spanning the France- witzerland border

• the new water park, Aquariaz, unrivalled by any other ski resort

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THE NEW PRODUCTION

The global success of the Horror and Fantasy Film Festival, which

surpassed the organisers’ wildest dreams, ignored the fact that

Avoriaz had been built on its own unique merits. After all, Avoriaz was

not about the film industry!


1975 Brochure

2010 Brochure

2007 Brochure

Secondly, since then the resort has focused on organising events designed to boost the destination’s prestige while remaining true to its values. The objective is to give holidaymakers the opportunity to be part of amazing and unique events: • The Trophées Mer et Montagne (2001-2009),

an event bringing France’s top sailors to the resort: Tabarly, Cammas, Le Cleach, Guillemot, Autissier, Poupon, Bidegorry, Chabaud et al., for a week featuring the Sailors’ French

Championship, sporting challenges, a sailing film festival, public discussions and more.

• The Raid des Portes du Soleil. An endurance event held through the 1990s in which teams of skiers experienced the ski area in all its diversity in a combination of downhill races, ski touring competitions, orienteering, snowshoeing, slaloms and more.

• Trophée des Femmes en Or (2013, 2014 and 2015). The Trophées des Femmes en Or events were designed to showcase the

talents of outstanding women who, each in their different field, help to fly the flag for women in society today. The categories were: Woman of Heart, Woman of Art, Woman of the Environment, Woman of Achievement, Woman of Innovation, Woman of the Digital World, Woman of Media, Most Promising Woman of Cinema, Woman of Style, Woman of Live Performance, Most Promising Woman of Music. The event brought the resort a good deal of media attention through high-profile winners like Léa Salamé, Wendy Bouchard, Agnès B, Victoria Bedos, Bérengère Krief and Catherine Frot.

• The Ice Cross Downhill extreme speed- skating world championship (2016), an event of a kind never before seen in France that attracted the world’s top extreme skaters in a spectacular show.

Thirdly, in 2015 Avoriaz began taking event organisation to a new dimension, the “gaming dimension”, featuring a number of original events designed to be “superproductions”. This innovation offers holidaymakers totally new and unforgettable experiences while generating endless images that make great social media fodder and encourage viral communication through platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Vine, Pinterest and Instagram.

• Avoriaz Snowball Fights: this competition is an import of the Yukigassen snowball battle

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THE NEW PRODUCTION

Riders Cup - World championship 2015

THE NEW PRODUCTION

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sport, which is very popular in Japan. A major competition took place there on 24 and 25 January 2015 in Shikoku. Competitions are held every year in Canada too. The format is a snowball battle between two teams of seven players on a snow pitch measuring 40 by 10 metres. The objective is to capture the flag of the opposing team. Games consist of 3-minute sets, making it an intensive and explosive sport. Any player hit by a snowball is immediately expelled. To win a set, one team must capture the other side’s flag. If this proves impossible, the winning team is

the one with the most players on the pitch at the end of regulation time.The Avoriaz Snowball Fights are full-on evening events designed to put on a great show, with computerised light displays, a DJ, video filming and more.Five events open to the public are held over the season, plus others by arrangement for groups.

• Winter Paintballing in the Stash. Imagine two armies of 20 riders massed for a totally new battle experience between Snowboarders and Skiers!

Freestylers armed for a confrontation of a type never seen before in Europe’s biggest snowpark, The Stash, in the middle of the vast Lindarets Forest. To get away from their opponents, or to launch a surprise attack, the riders use their weapons of choice, jumps: backflip, 360, double backside rodeo, MC twist, indy grab, cork, rocket air, and more....To record the event for posterity, Avoriaz videos each battle. Available by arrangement for groups, incentive events and rider teams.

• Human Bowling. If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to be a hamster, human bowling is the perfect sport, the unforgettable experience of being inside a bowling ball. To go for a strike, players have to get inside the giant bowling ball and use rapid body movements to control its trajectory. Rolling over snow is a unique experience – and heaps of fun!

Snowball fight

Human bowling

5 - Avoriaz: 50 years of music

Rock The Pistes Festival Shaka Ponk 2012

AVORIAZ – INSPIRING FROM THE START

Avoriaz was founded on the ideas of freedom, space and escape

from the everyday. These starting principles found their natural

expression in music, with which the resort became associated

in a host of ways, both organically and artistically.

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Avoriaz was officially opened on 8 January 1967, and on 19th March music made its début with a flourish in the first television show to be broadcast from Avoriaz, “Chansons d’hiver : Avoriaz 1 800”, which featured the best-known artists of the day. The producers immediately cottoned on to the benefits of f i lming in surroundings that were completely new, utterly unusual and really rather exotic. Pascal Danel singing the hit of that year “Les neiges du Kilimandjaro” in the middle of the mountains had a lot more appeal than it did when broadcast from a Parisian TV studio. The programme went all out to exploit the exotic

surroundings of the resort, featuring Joe Dassin on a ski bike (the forerunner of the snowscoot), Michel Delpech in the middle of a herd of reindeer, and Petula Clark. The stars were now shooting on location, singing in the natural surroundings of Avoriaz. This helped give exposure to the most modern and innovative aspects of this new ski resort. The programme’s host wrapped up by saying “IN AVORIAZ, EVERYONE HAS THEIR PISTE, THEIR REINDEER, THEIR SLEIGH, AND LIKE PETULA CLARK, THEIR SONG.”

Of course, at the time filming song performances on location was a very new thing, particularly in a ski resort – let alone a car-free one, with all the problems of transporting the masses of technical kit essential for producing the programme. The idea was repeated in 1969 with the programme “Avoriaz, ski, show et schuss”, which featured an even more impressive line-up. Serge Gainsbourg sang ‘Elisa’ from the back of a snowcat as he rode around the resort streets, while Jane Birkin sang ‘Jane B’, while perched on a sleigh parked in front of the Dromonts Hotel. These filmed recordings are now collector’s items. They were shown alongside the singers of the day such as Nino Ferrer and Nicole Croisille.

To turn Avoriaz into THE music resort, all that was needed was the right song. It came along in 1970 with Georges Chelon, one of the stars

Didier Lockwood 2015

of the time, who had a reputation for writing songs with well written lyrics. He wrote and performed the song “Avoriaz”, released on his album ‘Vengeance’.

On 25 January 1976, during the Horror and Fantasy Film Festival, one of Michel Drucker’s “Rendez-vous du dimanche” programmes went out from Avoriaz, with Alain Souchon singing “J’ai 10 ans” accompanied by the children from Annie Famose’s Village des Enfants. He was surrounded by the top singers of the day: Michel Berger, France Gall, Serge Lama and others. The programme highlighted the resort’s originality and featured its new real estate and skiing developments.

On 20 March 1978, even Line Renaud and Loulou Gasté’s burlesque “Paris Line” revue left its usual home at the Casino de Paris to put on a special show in the resort, which was decorated in its colours.

Music will continue to play an integral part in the life of the resort for as long as it remains in vogue with artists. In the space of a few years, Avoriaz became both the subject of their songs and their favourite place to be, in terms of both the natural and architectural surroundings. Today, Avoriaz is preparing to open a new chapter in its relationship with music by initiating an ambitious and diverse music events policy.

AVORIAZ – INSPIRING FROM THE START

4 0 - A V O R I A Z – 5 0 Y E A R S

Kavinsky 2015 Snowboxx Festival 2016

From rock to electro, with jazz and French pop music in the mix, Avoriaz is today THE ski-and-music destination.

JAZZ - Avoriaz Jazz Up, (2006-2016) attracted the names in the international jazz scene: Amad Jamaj, Archie Shepp, Didier Lockwood, Tigran Hamasyan, André Manoukian and co. After a full days skiing there was a concert at 6pm, followed by dinner and then the unmissable cabaret concerts featuring bands supported by the IFMP school of music in Aix en Provence.

ROCK - Rock the Pistes Festival, (since 2011) is a festival unlike any other in Europe because the admission ticket is a Portes du Soleil ski pass. And the concert venues are temporary stages built in the middle of nowhere in locations around the ski area. And for après-ski there is music on offer back in the different resorts. Past performers at Rock the Pistes have included Selah Sue, The Do, Charlie Winston, Shaka Ponk, Brigitte, Babyshambles, Cali, Skip the Use, Lily Wood and Christophe Maé.

ELECTRO POP - Rock On Ultimate kicks off the season in mid-December, with the first snow falls coinciding with the first musical event of the season. The top DJs of the day take over the resort, as did Kavinsky there in 2015/2016. During the day, 50 manufacturers offer the public the opportunity to get their hands on the latest ski and snowboard products in the

big test village. Events, competitions, happy hours and live concerts keep the atmosphere buzzing in the evening and at night.

ELECTRO - Throughout the season, Avoriaz produces or co-produces an avalanche of electro music events. They have names evocative of the endless partying that they involve: Avoriaz Party Week, Transition by Snowbombing, Snowboxx Festival, Snowclash and Avonight Parties. What they all have in common is that they feature outdoor concerts held in the snow, sometimes on rooftops, surrounded by the resort’s unique and eternally youthful architecture which adds to the sound-and-light experience.

A V O R I A Z – 5 0 Y E A R S - 4 1

AVORIAZ SKI AND MUSIC WORLD –

THE MAIN MUSICAL EVENTS

Ever since it first opened, Avoriaz and music have always gone

hand in hand.

Since the beginning of the new millennium, Avoriaz has in fact

been the only ski resort in Europe to organise, produce and schedule

a programme of “ski-and-music” festivals and events throughout

the season.

These are regular, high-profile events that play an integral part

in local life and have become firm favourites with holidaymakers, who come back year after year for them.

This enables the resort to capitalise on these “rendez-vous”, combining snowsports with a musical genre to

create a regular event with an added feel-good factor.

By associating these events with the resort’s values, which are a key

part of its identity, Avoriaz keeps the snowsports-music fusion fresh

and reinforces its identity.

2017: AN EXCITING SEASON OF MUSICRock On Ultimate, 9 to 11 DecemberRock the Pistes Festival, 18 to 25 MarchSnowboxx Festival, 18 to 25 March and from 28 to 31 March... a big surprise event!

ARNET

6 - Tomorrow’s world: the 4.0 connected resort

This action plan is being introduced in two areas, with all of the new features becoming available from December 2016 onwards.

Digital innovations designed to optimise how the resort is managed.• Systems of smart counters and sensors to

optimise traffic flows on arrival days and manage car parking. In a car-free ski resort like Avoriaz, this aspect of resort management is an important strategic requirement.

• Individual transport regulation systems to optimise journey times for the horse-drawn sleighs and tracked vehicles. This will result in better traffic management, a key part of the identity of a pedestrianised resort.

• Indicators notifying when recyclable waste containers are full, to optimise the collection of domestic refuse. Emptying only full containers will reduce the amount of collection required and any inconvenience caused.

• A regulated-management system for the wood-fired boiler plant that tailors hot water circuit requirements to holidaymakers’ usage. This will result in the energy being generated as and when required, since this requirement varies depending on visitor numbers.

• Digital public lighting control systems. Providing lighting only when it is needed prevents waste.

Digital innovations designed to improve holidaymaker comfort and convenience.• The development of a series of services apps

that can be downloaded onto a smartphone

to improve information services: interactive resort mapping, digital reception services with the programme of activities, show times, entertainment and games connected with the resort.

• A smartphone app for buying ski passes in the resort.

• A Working Center for use by people who want to work in a quiet location for a few hours, with all the essential services: broadband WiFi, printers, conference calling, access to news-papers and magazines, etc.

• A Plug-in Wall where holidaymakers can download a playlist of the artistes appearing at the different resort events.

• A Social Media Lounge where youngsters can hang out to share their photos and videos, produce vlogs about resort life and hold “connected community” events where Avoriaz fans can get together and share experiences after their week’s skiing. This highly innovative facility will strengthen the emotional bond that many young people have with the resort and enable them to share it with others.

• Augmented-reality and connected-wall information: ski lift waiting times and piste frequentation in real time, interactive piste maps, feeds of panoramic views, a resort guide, and so on.

More new ideas will be added to this plan, which is set to be introduced between December 2016 and December 2018.

A V O R I A Z – 5 0 Y E A R S - 4 3

Avoriaz came about like a start-up – a small group of dedicated and

highly motivated entrepreneurs who believed in the value of what they were doing. They overcame

every hurdle placed in their way by the groundbreaking nature of their idea and the difficulties inherent in

what they were trying to achieve.Their success was not least down

to the clarity of their vision, a vision that has withstood the test

of time, and the “laboratory of innovation” that has fostered the resort’s growth and development

since it was founded.Innovating for 50 years and

already a leading light in sustainable development, Avoriaz is now unveiling “Smart Resort”, a forward-looking project that is set to propel it into a new dimension.

AVORIAZ 2016 2020 : LE PROJET STATION CONNECTÉE 4.0

What is a “smart resort”? It is a resort connected by “smart” telecommunications technology and It systems and which uses this to improve the life of the people who live there.This is the challenge that Avoriaz has set itself: to have innovation constantly in mind, implementing a more virtuous and effective method of organisation and a more inclusive way of running itself.

PUBLISHING DIRECTOR: STÉPHANE LERENDU - WRITING: CHARLES-EDOUARD AUBRY - ONESTLAPOURÇA – CONCEPT & DESIGN: JBL CONSEIL & JBBOX / STORIESTORE - PRINTER: IDMM SEPTEMBRE 2016 – PHOTO CREDIT: P. LEBEAU / V. DUPE / M. VITRE / P. GUERRINI / N. LAFAY / D. LEES / J. VECKEMANS / BURTON SNOWBOARDS / S. LERENDU / S. DITTEL / FUNSTORM / G. MILLER / S. COCHARD / P. VERNY / P. LECLERC / E. BERGOEND / ORELI.B / WWW.SCALPFOTO.COM / FEMMES EN OR / AGENCE ZOOM / ESF AVORIAZ / SNOWCLASH / FOTOLIA / ISTOCK / SHUTTERSTOCK

All quotations are taken from the book L’Aventure Fantastique by Chantal Bourreau or from conversations that the author had with the people quoted.

We would like to thank Jean Pierre Chery, Agence Immobilière des Dromonts, Serge and Martine Vitré, Daniel Charié, Simon Cloutier, Nadine Berger, Brigitte Lebrun, Pascale Lefebvre, Marie-José Mougneau, Patricia Testard and Chantal Bourreau for allowing access to their valuable archived material which went in to creating this work.

Your press contacts • Virginie Dupé

Press & promotions, Avoriaz: +33 (0)6 13 30 79 39 [email protected]

• Stéphane Lerendu Resort director, Avoriaz: +33 (0)6 09 08 06 02 [email protected]

Media resources Copyright-free photographs available from our online photo library, press releases and press packs, plans and logos accessible 24 hours a day: www.avoriaz.com ’Media’ page. We have an audiovisual production service. This library of professional-format video images is available on request.

Press trips and individual hospitalityWe can organise your press reception, from writing draft features to creating a programme in the resort.

Avoriaz has teamed up with the French National Audiovisual Institute (INA) to create a digital museum featuring 60 brand new digitised videos. Journalists are invited to contact INA for additional resources. They will be available online from 30 November 2016.

AVORIAZ• 18,615 tourist beds

• 1,100,000 bed-nights every winter

• 42% of clientele from outside France (45 nationalities)

• 2,891 car parking spaces in the resort

• 16 horse-drawn vehicles, 60 horses

• 32 restaurants

• 170 ski instructors

PORTES DU SOLEIL SKI AREA• 600 km of skiing

• 300 pistes: 37 greens, 123 blues, 100 reds and 30 blacks

• 30 dedicated snowsports zones

• 195 ski lifts

• 45 km of cross-country skiing trails

• 8.30 m: average total snow fall each year

• 1,300 snowmakers

Key figures

Documents

Download Avoriaz Press pack celebrating 50years