8. It's the cheapest way to snowboard
Domes are great, but the cost of their construction and upkeep is big. As a result, session prices can be north of £30. By comparison, a freestyle night at Calshot (featured in the current issue of Whitelines, and in the video below) will only set you back £11. No flights, transfers or accommodation required either, obviously.
This is even more significant when you consider the younger generation, who no longer have to have well-off parents in order to get a taste for the shred. In this way, snowboarding is comparable in price to any other sports, opening it up to way more people.
The time will come, of course, when any serious young ripper will need to head overseas to step up to the bigger stuff. However, thanks to drymats, a career in snowboarding is in more people’s reach than ever. Just look at Katie Ormerod, who started out in Halifax and is now a dead cert for the next Olympics!: