Volume 2, No. 19. October 11, 2002
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Garden
One of the missions
of the American Coasters Enthusiasts is to promote preservation of endangered
parks and rides. Another is to have fun at any park and on all rides. With both
missions in mind, the ACE Northern California region sponsored a trip two Saturdays
ago to Bonfante Gardens in Gilroy, California. Some 200 enthusiasts took behind-the-scenes
tours, partook of a barbecue lunch and enjoyed exclusive ride time on the Quicksilver
Express.
Bonfante Gardens, though, will need more than the support of such devoted fans
and families. To survive, the park likely will need more than just more devoted
fans, even. Despite a new management team, new marketing initiatives, an $8
million loan to get its second season underway and promise of a Christmas Lights
festival, the 2-year-old park announced for the second year that it is closing
early. October 20 will be the last day of its 2002 season.
Current General Manager Ed Hutton said he hopes to get the park reopened for
the 2003 season in early April. To accomplish that, the park is canceling its
planned Christmas lights celebration and laid off three-fourths of its full-time
staff. “We have a bare crew of security and landscapers and a couple of
accounting people,” Hutton said, a total of just 10. “We’re going
down to that to regroup.”
That will get the park reopened in the short term, he is certain. “We have
enough cash to make this work to the spring.” To keep it open for the long
term will mean overcoming several obstacles, among them high operational costs
and debt service and a market that is suffering the worst of the nation’s
recession, an economic slump that has hurt other theme parks and attractions
in northern California as well. Those other attractions, however, have the benefit
of long histories and long-gone start-up debts. With a capacity of 800,000,
the park needed only 500,000 to break even with operating costs, Hutton said.
Though he wouldn’t reveal figures, he said the park did not approach that
projected attendance.
“We need an infusion of capital,” he said. “We need an operating
partner or management firm to invest in it.” To that end, the board of
directors, which has taken over running the not-for profit park from founder
Michael Bonfante, is currently soliciting potential partners. “They are
putting tremendous hours into working all this out,” Hutton said. “They
are talking to a few people” about partnering.
Just about everybody who visits Bonfante Gardens shares the consensus that it
is America’s most beautiful theme park. Only if its board of directors
can find a savior will that beauty be everlasting.
©2002, Minton Enterprises
LLC
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