Volume 2, No. 23. December 13, 2002
Tell
it on the Mountain
It already calls itself Knott’s Merry Farm in promotional material, an
obvious pun not only on the Buena Park, California, theme park’s Berry
name but also on its famous October incarnation as Knott’s Scary Farm.
This year, however, Knott’s Berry Farm has taken a significant first step
toward creating a signature Christmas seasonal event along the line of Halloween
Haunt by re-theming its Timber Mountain Log Ride as an Elf Mountain
Christmas.
“It’s silly that this hasn’t been done in the past,” said
Charles Bradshaw, the park’s director of entertainment. “We’ve
basically taken the ride as it is and just decorated it with elves.” The
ride’s faux mountain has about four dozen pine trees, so Bradshaw’s
crew decorated those as Christmas trees and built elves for such scenes as a
North Pole toy workshop, the reindeer stables, the mail room and a caroling
scene. The ride also has a soundtrack of elves singing “Jingle Bells.”
Some of the elves are animated, and next year many more will be, Bradshaw said.
The park already had a Christmas tradition that included strolling carolers
and seasonal performances in its theaters, including the popular 30-minute “Christmas
Carol” and the “It’s Christmas, Snoopy” ice show. Nevertheless,
this is the first time Knott’s has remade one of its rides into a Christmas
theme, a park-wide practice for Haunts. Indeed, when the 30th Annual Halloween
Haunt concluded November 2, Bradshaw switched the log ride from its Red Moon
Rising theme featuring werewolves to the North Pole community featuring
elves.
“As we did the log ride, it really turned us on,” Bradshaw said. “The
first year on anything is always iffy; you’re never quite there. But this
came out so beautifully. It’s a great credit to the design staff.”
And it has Bradshaw wanting to do more. “We do a wonderful Christmas now,
with a beautiful ice show, a lot of decorations, a Christmas craft festival
and lots of lights through Ghost Town and Camp Snoopy, but my dream is to do
as nice a job with Christmas and move it into the rest of the park as we do
with Halloween Haunt.”
He admitted that Haunt, with its mazes and roaming monsters, is better suited
as a stand-alone event (it currently runs as a separate admission event in the
evenings) with high production values, whereas Christmas is “more of a
decor experience” that would be seen merely as value added for guests.
But what’s to say that with more light displays, varying strolling talent
and, particularly, re-themed rides—“There are a few that will lend
themselves nicely,” Bradshaw said: “the mine ride I see coming up”—Knott’s
Merry Farm couldn’t become the institution it’s Scary counterpart
has attained.
“We’ll probably never put as much resources into Christmas as we do
for Haunt,” Bradshaw said. “But I would still like to bring Christmas
to a higher level. And this park lends itself so well to doing that.”
Knott's for tots
Part of the seasonal celebration at Knott’s Berry Farm is the annual U.S.
Marine Corps Reserves Toys for Tots drive the park hosts in conjunction with
the local NBC-TV affiliate, Hot 92 radio, Telemundo Television and Public Storage
Systems. In this the fifth year the park has participated, Knott’s Berry
Farm was offering free admission to anybody bringing a new toy of $10 value
or more to be donated last weekend and this weekend.
The promotion has taken on a life of its own and spawned some offshoot gift-giving
programs. One co-op of small retail stores brought in more than 1,400 toys in
return for 80 tickets, which the organization then offered to the stores’
vendors as a seasonal thank-you gift. A local fire department conducted its
own Toys-for-Tots drive, delivered the goods to Knott’s Berry Farm and
then used the subsequent free admission to host a day-at-the-park for underprivileged
children.
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LLC
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