Knott’s Soak City USA
Director:
Marty Keithley
Employees:
400 during peak season, 15 during off-season.
Attendance in 2000:
250,000
Revenues in 2000:
$5 million
Location:
Chula Vista
In an ideal world, Marty Keithley would have a knob in his office that controlled the thermostat of Chula Vista , not to mention the other San Diego communities surrounding his water park, Knott’s Soak City USA.
For any water park, hot temperatures are crucial for success, said Keithley, the park’s director.
“We’d love to have an 85- to 90-degree day every day,” he said, “and spread it out to a 100-mile radius.”
This year, the first half of the summer was cooler and sales were slower, Keithley said.
The rest of the summer became warmer, though, and attendance increased, he said.
Figures Close To Last Year’s
This year, Keithley and the park’s parent company, Ohio-based Cedar Fair L.P., expects attendance and sales to be close to the same as last year, which saw an estimated 250,000 visitors and revenues of $5 million.
Considering the sluggish economy this year, Keithley’s happy with the results.
According to Sal Giametta, vice president of community relations for the San Diego Convention & Visitors Bureau, reaching the same figures as last year is a positive sign.
A six-month report recently released by the bureau indicated attendance at local attractions had dropped by 12.2 percent.
“When other pieces of the industry may see some decline and you’re flat, that’s good news in a down or slightly down market,” Giametta said.
For Keithley, running the 33-acre park is a balancing act of several departments. They are marketing, finance, aquatics, maintenance, general services, and food and merchandise.
The staff expands to 400 people during the park’s season , which begins in late spring and ends in late summer or extends into weekends in the fall, depending on how long the warm days last, Keithley said.
The staff shrinks to 15 during the off-season, most of them in landscape and administration.
Keithley’s role in Soak City began with a simple question more than two years ago from his boss , “Can you swim?”
At the time, Keithley was operations manager at Knott’s Berry Farm in Buena Park, which is also owned by Cedar Fair.
The company was planning to build a water park adjacent to the Knott’s site, and Keithley was tapped to run the new attraction.
The company was also looking at other sites for water parks. When an already-built park in Chula Vista was put on the market, Keithley came down to check out the prospect and was later offered the job of running it.
Park Sees Attendance Upswing
In its former incarnation, White Water Canyon, the park had somewhat of a roller coaster history. Built and launched under private ownership about four years ago, it was foreclosed upon early in 1999.
Placed under a consultant’s management that summer, the park saw its attendance increase from an estimated 175,000 in ’98 to 200,000.
That fall, Cedar Fair bought White Water Canyon, with plans to market it alongside its new Soak City water park in Buena Park.
In Chula Vista, the park’s layout wasn’t changed. There’s a wave pool, a children’s play area, a gentle river ride, a “funhouse” and a kids’ slide area. Along with what Keithley refers to as “the mountain,” are the park’s main draws , high-speed slides.
When Keithley and his group took over the park in December 1999, plans were already in motion to give the park a new theme.
Painted somber browns and grays, White Water was designed to look like a ghost town.
As Soak City, the park was remade into a would-be ’50s surf town, with bright blues and greens and rides with localized names, such as La Jolla Falls and the Coronado Express.
The latter, a family-oriented raft ride, was the 22-slide park’s only new attraction in 2000.
Theme parks are always focused on having a new reason to bring customers back each year. Because Soak City didn’t add any new rides in 2001, the pressure’s on for 2002.
This year, the water park added some arcade-like games, like basketball throws and penny crunchers, and they have done well, Keithley said.
Other additions include a new filtration system for the park’s slow-moving river ride.
Venue Hosts Special Events
Soak City also continues to develop its special event business, using a 5,000-person capacity grassy area at one end of the property and offering access to the water rides and other features. The site has a new catering kitchen. The park’s staff handles catering themselves, with help from Knott’s Buena Park team.
As far as new rides go, there is room to grow. Along with Soak City, Cedar Fair has also bought an additional 32 acres of adjoining land for possible expansion.
Plans have yet to be finalized, but there could be an announcement this fall, Keithley said.
Some of the ideas include expanding the park, adding some fixed rides, a hotel, a go-cart track and miniature golf course.
“We’re still searching for the right mix and the exact time to do it,” Keithley said. “Obviously, I would love for it to be this off-season, and have it ready for next year.”
Chula Vista Mayor Shirley Horton is pleased with the prospect of Soak City’s expansion.
“I’ve had the opportunity to sit down with them to talk about several ideas that they’re bouncing around and I think their future plans are quite exciting,” Horton said.
When advertising the park in San Diego County, Soak City uses billboards, radio and television, including Spanish-language media. Young families are the target demographic.
Extending the campaign outside the county hasn’t paid off as much.
“We’re trying to feel out that boundary and we will continue to spend a little money to get out and into those outlaying areas to see if we can’t expand our market,” Keithley said.
Promotions have also fueled attendance. The most popular one has been a deal for low-cost tickets through Compton-based chain Food4Less.
Important Lessons
According to Keithley, one operational challenge is dealing with the young people they hire for the summer. For many of them, it’s their first job.
“Most theme parks, like the Zoo and SeaWorld we all have the same difficulty, I think,” Keithley said. “You’re trying to put the seeds of that work experience into them. Not only are you teaching them their actual function, but you’re teaching them about work.”
There are groups set up to train, support and monitor all of the employees, and very few of them don’t succeed, he said.
Coming from a larger park , Knott’s Berry Farm has 4,000 employees , Keithley now has a new level of involvement.
During the last off-season, for instance, he and the other staff took part in projects such as painting the various pools’ surfaces.
At a bigger park, the work would have been done by a full-time off-season maintenance crew, but Soak City doesn’t need one.
Projects like these can give people a sense of ownership they might not have, Keithley said. It can be important, he said.
Upon his arrival in ’99, Keithley faced employees’ mixed feelings, he said.
“When you come into a park that had a little history of bad luck and some other things, including bad weather, employees find it a little tough to believe in another new system,” he said. “So, getting them to buy into the way we did things was a little tough.”
Knott’s and Cedar Fair’s reputations made it easier. He reassured employees, telling them: “With my words, I can’t tell you to believe in this system, it’s going to come in time. But I can assure you they’ve treated me fairly.”
