Knott’s Scary Farm 2025

[deadbydawn]

Seeing that talent hasn't been told of this schedule change yet. Orientation is this week so I assume that is when they will get the news.

I see people online only talk up Scary Farm but....watching the Videos on the annoucments

The event got two new houses and that's it...no new shows or scarezones....very confused because I assumed this was like HHN and made them a ton of money but they seem to be pulling back this year

Knott's gets a lot of love, and for good reason. I see a fair share of criticism though and I absolutely don't think they are exempt from it, especially as it pertains to management and operations which have been mostly horrible for as long as I can remember. I think we all know why these changes might be happening.

I hope Sick Flags doesn't kill haunt. Knowing corporate, executives are cutting costs to make their short-term incentives and then run to the next job with Sux Flags behind them in flames.

I've travelled every year (except a couple of covid years) since 2009, and I'm really thinking about skipping it next year already.

Yeah, so far what we've seen is not great. Always interesting to get your perspective as someone who travels from outside of the country.

 

[Clive]

Seeing that talent hasn't been told of this schedule change yet. Orientation is this week so I assume that is when they will get the news.

Knott's gets a lot of love, and for good reason. I see a fair share of criticism though and I absolutely don't think they are exempt from it, especially as it pertains to management and operations which have been mostly horrible for as long as I can remember. I think we all know why these changes might be happening.

Yeah, so far what we've seen is not great. Always interesting to get your perspective as someone who travels from outside of the country.

Talent not being told about this in advance is beyond unacceptable. People take these jobs - with unusual hours - because of the guaranteed pay for a certain number of days. Removing even one of them for any reason other than an act of god (i.e. a hurricane or some other natural disaster) is reprehensible.

 

[queenmetroid]

I hope Sick Flags doesn't kill haunt. Knowing corporate, executives are cutting costs to make their short-term incentives and then run to the next job with Sux Flags behind them in flames.

I've travelled every year (except a couple of covid years) since 2009, and I'm really thinking about skipping it next year already.

I don't think they kill it. It makes too much money. Make it worse, certainly, but not kill it completely. That said...

Unless Six Flags management is completely incompetent (and not that I'm absolving them of that charge...), they have to know that haunts exist due to consumer goodwill and none of them are immune to a rapid exodus of customers. I personally think that Knott's really exists in a sort of grey area where the customers are relatively loyal and tolerant but only so much. If we look at the performance of the post COVID years, there was a noticeable decline in popularity and I think that's more tenuous than it appears.

They are already only replacing two houses per year, and they absolutely cannot afford to skimp (or skip) a year or two of that because that leaves them with a set of bad houses for years, and we know from their high profile failures (Dead of Winter, Dark Entities, Bloodlines 1842, The Grimoire) that those mazes get shunned by the public pretty quickly. Too many of those and the balance of the park will sour very quickly.

 

[viking_wizard_eyes]

This event has been trending in a bad direction for a little while now, no? I’ve always kinda felt that way. Nothing to base that on other than my own experiences (no insider info or anything like that), but idk. There’s just been so many signs over the years and it seems like even the most devout KSF people are starting to get fed up, too.

 

[Rideguy70]

If we look at the performance of the post COVID years, there was a noticeable decline in popularity and I think that's more tenuous than it appears.

I could be wrong, but wasn't it post COVID that they started the Chaperone policy for haunt? I thought that's when the attendance declines really started to happen.

Likely a combination of a lot of elements, but I it really seemed like that policy coincided with the biggest drop in attendance, and I don't think ever really quite recovered.

 

[DTH]

Other than sucking for the employees (and if they're smart, they will pay them anyway and just take the hit, but keep operational costs for those days down -- but who am I kidding), it'll keep everything more fresh and from running out of gas much sooner.

And IMO, KSF has been on the up and up lately. Quality is trending upward and operations have been running smoother. The 2010s were a ROUGH era and I almost quit the event entirely, but instead just skipped years and even that felt like a lost cause.