GILROY
– Despite some disappointing attendance figures during the 2003
season’s first phase, Bonfante Gardens directors are keeping
optimistic as they enter a three-month run when the horticultural
theme park will be open daily.
GILROY – Despite some disappointing attendance figures during the 2003 season’s first phase, Bonfante Gardens directors are keeping optimistic as they enter a three-month run when the horticultural theme park will be open daily.
Overall attendance at the Hecker Pass amusement park is up from last year, officials say. But that’s largely due to the park being open one week earlier than it was in 2002.
Staff at the park said roughly 7,000 people visited the park the Sunday during Memorial Day weekend. This spring, about 1,500 people were coming out for the park’s Garden Days – discounted weekday events where patrons can enjoy the park’s gardens, restaurants and shops while rides are not in operation.
“Some days have been disappointing, but most of that has been weather related,” said director Joel Goldsmith. “Memorial Day weekend attendance was pretty good because we had nice weather.”
Staff said the Memorial Day weekend attendance figures were slightly favorable to numbers from last spring when the Gilroy-based theme park was operating under homegrown management.
Earlier this year, the Bonfante Gardens board of directors turned daily operations over to Paramount Parks, one of the nation’s leading theme park operators. The move was done to increase attendance and ignite a broader interest in the park, which has struggled since its March 2001 inception to stay in the black.
Goldsmith and other directors mirror the cautious optimism of employees at the park who estimate that crowds and sales have been at least comparable to last year.
The new daily schedule which kicked off Saturday – and the summer weather that’s now approaching – are what’s driving Director Al Pinheiro’s positive outlook.
“I think this is what we’ve been waiting for. We’ll get a better feel for what attendance will be like during the summer now that we’re open daily,” Pinheiro said. “I’m excited that people now have a choice to go any day of the week.”
Hours of operation will vary for Bonfante Gardens, but the park will be open each day through Labor Day. In the fall, Bonfante Gardens will go back to a weekend-only schedule.
Paramount Parks, which owns and operates Great America amusement park in Santa Clara, is in the midst of a marketing campaign that is piggy-backing the two parks together.
A VIP pass for one park allows entry into the other, and many commercials across a variety of media advertise the two-for-one deal.
Paramount Vice President Barb Granter said VIP sales for both parks has never been higher. Granter declined to give specific sales figures, citing company policy.
Late last month, Paramount pulled its ads from The Dispatch for the entire summer season, just weeks before school lets out and barely two months from the Garlic Festival. Garlic Festival organizers expect 125,000 people to spend time in Gilroy during the 25th annual event.
Granter dismissed any notion that the ad pull was related to the park’s financial struggles.
“It’s not about spending less money, it’s about how we’re using the same money differently,” Granter said. “We just finished a TV commercial that is running this week. It’s all part of our plan to reach a broader market.”
The crux of Paramount’s marketing realignment is to draw patrons from a 200-mile radius instead of the 50-mile zone Bonfante operators shot for in the past. Granter said research is still under way to see if the campaign is drawing a wider range of visitors.
On a recent Garden Day, several patrons visiting the park told a Dispatch reporter they were from Gilroy, Hollister, San Jose, San Francisco, San Mateo and Alameda. And over at the Gilroy Visitors Bureau, inquiry calls in May were slightly higher than calls placed in May last year.
“We got 140 calls last month and 132 in May 2002, so it’s not a tremendous difference, but there were more calls this year,” said Kirsten Carr, director of the Gilroy Vistors Bureau.
Carr said there has been an increase in hits on the bureau’s Web site linking online visitors to Bonfante. She did not have specific figures for the Bonfante Gardens link available, but said 10,000 more visitors have entered the bureau’s home page.
While the park’s rides and attractions have not changed for the 2003 season, five new musical revues are being presented by Bonfante Gardens this year. The park is currently running “Little Bear,” and starting July 4 “Franklin the Turtle” will begin its one-month run. The season of shows will wrap up in October with a Halloween-themed production called “Mona the Vampire’s Halloween Extravaganza.”
Shows are free with the price of admission into the park.
For more information on Bonfante Gardens Family Theme Park, visit www.bonfantegardens.com.
