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This year’s Snowcial, which begins Thursday on Tahoe’s south shore and runs through early Sunday afternoon, could be termed “Hammer Time.” That’s because the event will feature M.C. Hammer as its keynote speaker on Friday. One day later, the group will be among the crowd at Harrah’s South Shore Room watching the legendary hip hop artist perform at Saturday’s 7:30 p.m. concert.

Attendance at the Snowcial is expected to double from the inaugural event and has almost half of the 2009 founders returning. This year’s attendees will enjoy skiing and snowboarding at Heavenly ski resort. There will also be a poker tournament, various social networking events, and a scavenger hunt.

Yes, MC Hammer, as in U Can't Touch This. You may not know MC Hammer is a social media expert. He gave the keynote speech at the Snowcial conference on snow sports and social media. We arrived to learn the concert was sold out. I had 6 extra tickets which I sold to the first 6 people in line.

"Snowcial" - A place for all of us Snow Industry Social Media Peeps to gather, confer and play somewhere other than online!

Rocking Conference with very interesting speakers.

It was an incredibly fun event. Looking forward to attending it next year for sure! Thanks Heavenly Ski Resort as well as Special Thanks also to Aimee, Russ and Kerry!

How did MC Hammer become my hero? Long story. Got to meet him in Lake Tahoe for Snowcial, a gathering of winter sports enthusiasts and people into social media. The event was hosted by Harrah's Lake Tahoe, Harvey's Tahoe and Heavenly Resorts.

The show culminated with him bringing half the audience to the stage for the final song. It was a lovefest and a dancefest and a drunkfest of the highest order.

Other speakers at the conference included Monica Sullivan of Harrah's, Rob Sandie of Viddler.com, Dave Amirault of Freeskier Magazine, Christine Loredo of Trilibis Mobile, and Pete Blackshaw from Nielsen Online.

"We were tossing around the question: 'What would be the Sundance Festival for the Facebook generation and yet was core to snowsports enthusiasts?' The intent behind the first two years of the event was say OK, let's not pretend that we're smart enough to know what a consumer event would look like,"

Future Snowcial gatherings may involve both a business conference and a consumer event. While the 2010 Snowcial ran at the same time as the International CES electronics show in Las Vegas, future Snowcial events might directly follow the major consumer electronics trade show. "Anyone who is into snowsports, it just becomes part of their trip. They hit Vegas and they hit Heavenly." LaPlante suggested as a possible future scheduling tie-in.