Update: This article was updated 7/21/20 to include new information about Knott’s Taste of Calico event dates
It’s been a while since we could actually say this, but welcome back to the Farm! As a big surprise, Knott’s announced a new festival last week, The Taste of Calico. Taking place in Ghost Town, the park is hosting a mini food festival that features more than 20 food items. While parts of the park are open for this festival, they are not operating any attractions, rides, nor large entertainment. Instead, Knott’s is operating within California’s strict business guidelines, serving food in an outdoor environment only. However, you will also find craft booths and many Ghost Town shops open as well. So there’s a surprising amount to do in the mostly closed park. Let’s take a look at the new operations and festival . . .
Health Screening and Safety Procedures
Cedar Fair, Knott’s Berry Farm’s parent company, has committed a lot of resources to be able to reopen their parks as safe as possible. While Knott’s won’t be getting back to its regular operations anytime soon, the safety steps taken are likely what Cedar Fair intends on doing across the chain. Several of the parks in the Cedar Fair chain have already begun welcoming guests back (Cedar Point, Worlds of Fun, Dorney Park, and Kings Island). Here’s what they are doing in other parks to ensure guest safety during their visit:
And here’s an interesting video the company produced for their flagship park, Cedar Point:
While Knott’s themselves have not announced what the park entry process will look like when they do ultimately fully reopen, it would be a fairly safe bet that it will follow very closely to what the other parks in the chain will be doing and what to what we have experienced this weekend for the Taste of Calico.
At the Main Entrance Plaza, a new queue has been installed to allow temperature checks before entering the park.
Before entering the park, guests will be asked if they have experienced any COVID-19 symptoms in the past 14 days. When cleared, guests will continue through the check-point and get their temperature taken.
In a surprising move, Knott’s California Shop has been completely gutted and is now being used for the health screening processes.
The temperature-taking process was quick and easy! Knott’s is using an infrared camera in order to read a guest’s body temperature as they walk through the room, no temp-gun needed! Just walk across the designated floor marking and you’ll be waived on through to the exit. Nothing invasive or scary about it. We found this method to be much more pleasant than the current temperature gun to the head being used at Disney.
At bag check, all of the security tents have been shifted to the side closest to the temperature screening area for ease of access. Cedar Fair is continuing to follow its standard bag check policy upon entering the park.
Reminders of the risks of COVID can be found nearly everywhere upon entering the park, starting with the pre-recorded safety announcements at the entry and plexiglass around the turnstiles. Masks and social distancing are a must, and Knott’s is doing their best to make sure everyone is aware of the new protocols that have been put in place.
Around the park, benches and tables have been spaced out to accommodate social distancing, and to encourage guests to sit down to eat – rather than walking around without a mask eating food.
In the now-defunct Mystery Lodge queue, near Calico Rapids, Knott’s has set up a Relax Zone which allows you to take your face mask off if you need a breather. But because the weather was lovely yesterday, and the event takes place later in the day (4pm until 10pm), very few people were using the area.
This area uses Mystery Lodge’s outdoor line queue and features shade, fans, and benches to help cool you off during a hot day in the park. Signage requests for you to continue to social distance while you have your mask off.
A side note, the real “mystery” of the Mystery Lodge, is why has it been closed for so long and what’s going to take its place?
Taste of Calico
While Knott’s Berry Farm attractions remain closed to the public, this specially ticketed outdoor event gives guests access to the streets of Calico to sample some of Knott’s culinary creations, including boysenberry specialties, visit local crafters, and do some shopping at the specialty stores. The most exciting part is just walking around the park again! While this event requires each person to purchase a $25 5-sample tasting card to enter the park, it’s essential for controlling the number of people in the park and making sure that Knott’s can afford to operate the festival at the same time.
We understand that the event was limited to about 500 people per day. VERY limited indeed.
UPDATE: Today, Knott’s has announced that they will be extending the Taste of Calico food festival! The operational festival days are now July 24-26, July 31-August 2, and August 7-9. And there are also new, longer hours for the event as well: Fridays and Saturdays from 12pm-9pm, and 12pm-8pm on Sundays. Admission remains limited and pre-purchased from Knott’s website.
Food
There several food options available, But due to some unfortunately long lines and slow service, we’ve only been able to try a few things during our visit.
Here’s our takeaway on the food portion of the festival . . . the food is consistently good throughout the festival. But, because this is a small event, there are very few booths. As a result, everyone lines up 5 different times to use all of the value on their tasting cards. At 500 people that’s 2,500 line visits. So waits became uncomfortably long very quickly.
Merchandise:
Knott’s has reopened several Gift Shops around Ghost Town, although what we’re most interested in the Crafters in the booths outdoors. For many of the crafters, this is their first opportunity to make money in months.
The teas are amazing.
Boysenberry hat anyone?!
honey from local farmers.
This booth is fun, they have a live beehive inside.
Entertainment
There are even some citizens of Calico chatting with guests and each other from the balconies of Ghost Town.
While Knott’s has not officially listed any entertainment during this short festival, you will find character interaction and music throughout Ghost Town. During our visit, we were able to spot some of the citizens of Calico, including the Mayor and a bandit on top of the Saloon interacting with passing guests.
We also spotted a magician playing with the crowd on stage in Calico Square.
A Small Price to Pay For Boysenberries
While we had a wonderful time at the event we do have a few issues that we think can be easily resolved. Around Ghost Town, a great many of the Food Booths did not have distancing markers or enough of them (temporary nor permanent) laid out for guests as the lines became longer than planned. Generally, guests do a much better job of distancing where there are lines on the ground (even simple masking tape would work). Also, we experienced painfully long lines to get food items considering the small number of guests. At some points, the lines were estimated to be 45 minutes or longer! That’s a very long time to wait for slider-sized portions even in normal times.
This leads us to how tickets are handled for this event. While the number of tickets was estimated to be limited to just 500 people, and the event was listed to run from 4 to 10pm on Friday & Saturday and Noon to 8pm on Sunday. Most guests seem to have arrived in that first hour. Knott’s probably should have staggered the ticket times to allow better guest flow throughout the event, possibly even extending the event hours so more tickets could be sold.
Guests are clearly not going to stay during the entire duration of the event, and staggering the number of guests entering every hour should help to keep food queue lines shorter and allow guests more time for shopping. Timed entries would also ease the burden on the temperature and bag check outside the park. If Knott’s wishes to extend the event beyond the two weekends listed, they really need to address the issue of lines. We admire all their new safety procedures, but safety sort of flies out the window when folks are packed into long lines.
Take a Virtual Stroll
MiceChat’s own Dusty Sage took a stroll around Knott’s new festival yesterday, here’s your chance to follow along . . .
Elsewhere on the Farm
Halloween?
It sure does look like Knott’s has pulled their Halloween props out of storage and is working on the backstage mazes. See the images below and let us know what you think. But with the event just over 2 months away, it may just be wishful thinking on our part. That would be a big expense for Knott’s if the season had to be canceled as it looks like it might have to be.
Do you think Knott’s could do a smaller, socially-distanced, version of Haunt for 2020, or is it completely off the table? Let us know your thoughts on how a haunt might operate in these strange times. But if ever there was a time when face masks would fit perfectly, it’s Halloween!
The Beauty of the Boysenberry
For some of us, it has been months since we have been in a theme park, let’s enjoy the beauty of this 100 year old park.
The Blacksmith was working away when we were there. It was an unnecessary but very nice touch for him to be staffed and give the area a little extra life.
The pathways of Ghost Town felt wide open and the gardens were beautifully planted.
Even the fiberglass Saloon girls know how to keep 6′ distance.
Bear-y Tales Coming Soon
While the park has been closed, Knott’s has continued work on their new attraction, Knott’s Bear-y Tales: Return to the Fair. On Friday we get our first look at the attraction and the attraction marquee from a distance. Knott’s has announced that once the park reopens officially, the new attraction will make its debut.
The marquee is fun to look at! It has lots of spinning parts.
Knott’s has also installed another Coke Refresh Station under the attraction station, which replaces part of the arcade.
As we take a closer look into the station, you can also just make out that the new loading platform mural has been painted as well as the vehicles have been painted to the classic red to match the original ones.
Looking at the queue entrance, there still work that needs to be done, but one thing to note is the line entrance has been rotated to face the Charleston Fountain.
Adorning the fences along the queue is these circle emblems lettering BT, for Bear-y Tales!
Behind the queue entrance, on the wall of the building, Knott’s has painted a big Berry Factory Mural as apart of the retheming.
One final thing of note is that Knott’s has installed street signs on the lamp pole outside of Cordy’s Corner. The new street name is Memory Lane South.
Additional work has occurred on the Shultz Theatre. New canvas roof covers have been installed over the upstairs doors.
Taking a quick trip outside the park we can see that a new digital marquee sign has been installed over the upstairs balcony.
The digital sign only has two images stored in it at the moment. The second image confused us because it says Knott’s Berry Farm: Camp Snoopy Theatre. I wonder why the sign displays an image of something completely on the other side of the park?
Marketplace
Outside the park, in the California Marketplace, Knott’s has moved the Calico Stage right into the middle of Paper Street to entertain guests during the weekends. The tables are spaced out with lots of distancing. It’s actually a nice spot to consume a chicken dinner from the to-go window just to the left.
Around the Marketplace, these beautiful eagle decorations adorn the 4th of July bunting.
In the last couple of weeks, Build-A-Bear has reopened.
At the door, you are told to wait for an employee to enter the store.
Inside, they feature the Trolls from the recent movie.
We have also spotted some of the exclusive Build-A-Bear shirts for Knott’s.
Over at Virginia’s, specially themed face masks have arrived.
The masks are $10 each. We really like the Calico Map design.
We also spotted a bunch of the 100th Anniversary Pins inside the shop.
Over at the recently reopened Peanuts Headquarters, you’ll find some new Snoopy and Woodstock plush that look really cute.
And the TGI Fridays has reopened for takeout (or eat in the outdoor patio or new cafe seating on the closed Paper Street)
Let Us Help
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Let’s Hear From You
We really did enjoy our time on the Farm. Hopefully, Knott’s will extend the Taste of Calico event for the rest of the summer (perhaps even until the park reopens). Despite a few social distancing shortfalls, Knott’s has made the experience as safe and fun as possible. If the park is unable to open soon, a rotating menu for the Taste of Calico could help fill the gap. And what about the question of Halloween? Possible, impossible . . . let us know what a socially-distanced Halloween event would look like!
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