SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA ENTERPRISE : With Attendance Down, Knott’s Berry Farm Hopes That Its Newest Attraction Will Get It : Out of a Jam
Half a century ago, the Knott family stapled brief messages to menus in the Chicken Dinner Restaurant in Buena Park. “Patrons please note,” they read. “Rumors we have sold out are being persistently circulated. We have NOT, nor is the place for sale.”
The same kind of rumors, coupled with quick denials, still surface periodically. But where the talk once flourished during the runaway success of what is now Knott’s Berry Farm, the recent whispers come after three years of weak attendance at an amusement park that has been a regional landmark for decades.
As Knott’s enters its 54th summer season, it is struggling to compete as the only family-run theme park in Southern California. It is surrounded by four larger--and better-funded--parks owned by entertainment or consumer products conglomerates.
The corporate-owned attractions, including nearby Disneyland, spend tens of millions of dollars each year on new rides and advertising campaigns. By contrast, Knott’s recent new attractions have been relatively meager, and it has thinned its executive ranks and put off a planned worldwide expansion.
Hoping for a comeback, Knott’s is set to unveil a special-effects show called Mystery Lodge on Saturday. It is the park’s most ambitious undertaking since the recession hit California in the early 1990s.
Knott’s hopes to regain ground in the theme park wars by outsmarting--not outspending--its rivals, park officials say.
“We find ourselves in a business that is incredibly dominated by media and communications giants,” said Darrel Anderson, one of the grandsons of founders Walter and Cordelia Knott and a former board chairman.
“It leaves us as one of the last independent amusement parks in a major market--and probably at a competitive disadvantage,” he said. “But we have carved out a niche (for) family, wholesome entertainment that is still in demand.”
Mystery Lodge is the kind of attraction Knott’s executives hope will lure their most important target audience: young parents and their children.
Inside the barn-size, wood-covered building bedecked with totem poles, guests will watch an actor portraying a mystical Canadian Native, who spins stories as images waft from the smoke of an ersatz campfire and fly around the room.
A storytelling attraction is hardly conventional in an industry dominated by white-knuckle roller coasters and gut-wrenching simulator rides. But that’s fine by Knott’s President Terry E. Van Gorder, who said he wants something that further sets the park apart from its competitors.
“It’s a celebration of the human spirit, of the magic and mystery of life,” said Van Gorder, who became enthralled when he saw a forerunner of the Mystery Lodge attraction at the Expo ’86 world’s fair in Vancouver, British Columbia. “It dwells on the family, the need for bonding of one generation to the next.”
Besides being different, Mystery Lodge is significantly less expensive than most theme park attractions. It cost $10 million, compared to the estimated $60 million that Universal Studios spent last year on its “Back to the Future” simulation ride, and a similar amount Disneyland is said to be spending to create an “Indiana Jones Adventure” ride opening next year.
While Mystery Lodge may be a relative bargain, it is a strategic risk. No one knows whether children will bug their parents to take them to hear a storyteller. Mystery Lodge will add another Native American-themed attraction to the park; the Indian Trails crafts village of two summers ago spurred little additional attendance.
Knott’s can ill afford many duds. The recession has been so hard on the park that Van Gorder refers to it as “the depression.”
Along with its regional competitors, Knott’s has fallen in popularity among the nation’s other theme parks. It ranked ninth last year, with 3.7 million people attending, down from fifth in 1991, according to an annual listing by Amusement Business in Nashville, Tenn. Last year, Knott’s placed behind Universal Studios-Hollywood and Sea World in San Diego, but ahead of Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia. And, as usual, all trailed Disneyland, which was second in the nation last year with 11.4 million visitors, just behind Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla.
“It is harder for them each year,” Dennis Speigel, a theme park consultant in Cincinnati, said of Knott’s. “The bigger companies can market smarter. They can buy advertising cheaper. And out there in California, advertising has to be your biggest cost outside of labor.”
Like the other Southern California theme parks, Knott’s generally sets its admission prices several dollars below those at Disneyland. Its current price is $26.95 for adults and $15.95 for children ages 3 to 11, but it often has widely available discounts.
While there has been talk of a sale to Walt Disney Co., Marriott Corp. or Paramount Communications Inc., the family will hear none of it. “That will never happen,” said Virginia Knott Bender, a daughter of the founders.
Knott’s has managed to stay profitable because, in keeping with the frugal ways of its original owners, it is virtually debt-free. The entire operation, which generates about $200 million in total annual sales, has also been helped by steady growth in its packaged-foods division and products such as premium ice creams and artificially sweetened boysenberry preserves.
Still, the theme park is the core business, and it sets the pace of the company.
“We’ve had earthquakes, floods, a poor economy, companies moving out of the state, riots, murders--so many things,” said Bender, 81, who still works at her gift shop at the park.
Because the number of visitors has been dropping steadily, Van Gorder said, he has been holding off from launching major new projects or replacing outdated rides. Now, however, the family is going ahead with a five-year plan that will add, among other things, a third roller coaster.
And there is still plenty on which to build. Knott’s is one of the region’s most beautifully landscaped parks, with some of the trees that were planted by founder Walter Knott still there.
It has the best food of any park in the nation, according to one poll. And, perhaps most important, it has a certain earnestness, a lack of pretension, that sets it apart.
Knott’s has also adopted innovative marketing methods to attract crowds to the 150-acre park. A monthlong Halloween Haunt, in which workers dress up as ghouls and the rides are re-themed to be scary, sells out every year. Knott’s is also a leader in marketing to ethnic groups--from a gospel choir day to Fiesta Filipino.
“Our niche is counter, in a way, to the other theme parks,” Van Gorder said. “We cannot compete with others in finances. . . . We used to be outgunned 5 to 1. Now it’s more like 10 or 15 to 1.”
But he said Knott’s will survive--and even thrive.
“This organization,” he said, “has a lot of heart and soul.”
Amusement Parks
Faced with declining attendance, Knott’s Berry Farm is striving to maintain its foothold among the top 10 amusement parks in the nation. 1993 attendance figures in millions:
% change Park Attendance from 1992 Walt Disney World*, Orlando (Lake Buena Vista, Fla.) 30.0 -0.8 Disneyland, Anaheim 11.4 -2.0 Universal Studios, Orlando, Fla. 7.4 +10.0 Universal Studios, Universal City 5.0 +3.0 Sea World, Orlando, Fla. 4.5 +5.0 Sea World, San Diego 4.0 No change Knott’s Berry Farm, Buena Park 3.7 -5.0 Cedar Point, Sandusky, Ohio 3.6 +15.0 Six Flags Great Adventure, Jackson, N.J. 3.5 +13.0 Busch Gardens, Tampa, Fla. 3.5 +13.0
* Includes EPCOT Center and Disney-MGM Studios
Knott’s Attendance Trend
Attendance at Knott’s Berry Farm dropped 26% from 1989 to 1993. Attendance in millions:
1989: 5.0 1990: 5.0 1991: 4.0 1992: 3.9 1993: 3.7
Source: AB Research; Researched by JANICE L. JONES / Los Angeles Times
