“No Other Farm is Brave Like Your Farm…”

Trails, Ice-skating, Advertising..

My recent rumination about what the farm might become generated a lot of great comments.  Thank you!

Some interesting patterns..

Ice Skating

My idea about a stone-lined (natural looking) splash pad in the summer and an ice rink in the winter generated a lot of excitement and some worry as well.  Would such a thing become a magnet for the wrong element?  Is it even possible?  This second question is one of my own:  we have a lot of cold winter nights, but we would have to engineer (as in refrigerate) such an attraction, since we aren’t cold enough to freeze over most of the winter.  You can’t really market something that has to wait on the weather, but if the Mission Inn festival of lights can feature an outdoor rink, at 860 feet above sea level, I’m guessing we can get away with it at 4400 feet elevation.  As to the “bad element,” my guess is that our admission price would control that to some degree — although I hear even Disneyland has to break up gang fights these days.  The bottom line is that the farm, in the summer, desperately needs some sort of water attraction.  I’m thinking of adults, cooled down by misters, as the kids play in a 3″ deep pond, roiled by surprise fountains.  Water attraction ideas, of any sort, are welcome.

Advertising

A lot of folks think we need to advertise a lot more.  Right now, our most consistent results come from our email list, but we’re pretty consistent on Instagram.  We also tried a billboard this year, which didn’t seem to work.  (I believe in billboards, but I think the location we chose — and the digital six second timer — just didn’t click.)  A retired advertising executive, for a Fortune 500 company, once told me that “marketing is the efficient identification of customers.”  I do have one secret method that is super efficient at finding field trip customers, but I haven’t found anything equivalent for dinner theater or food sales.  I suspect that Riley’s Farm needs regular digital video content that inspires people to check us out, and that’s where I would like to put most of my money in the near future.  I need some bright, winsome young people to help me.

RV Camping

Two problems.  The Oak Glen community hasn’t been high on RV camping because it is perceived to be unsightly.  I actually do believe that you could design a beautiful RV campground, provided you planted a LOT of tall shade trees, but (2nd problem), we don’t have a lot of flat land.  We might be able to do it on our Mile High ranch (lots of flat ground), but we would need some expensive roadway to move guests between locations.  The hike between the Oak Glen side and Mile High is 3.2 miles.

Alcohol

While quite a few folks applauded the notion of a cider cave and apple whiskey production, some folks were worried this would discourage schools and attract the wrong element.  My abiding sense is that wineries and regions like the Kentucky bourbon trail are quite a bit different from biker bars.  It’s not about getting drunk. It’s about the craft, and the role cider has played in American history.  Lots of parents, after a two hour drive to get here, want to relax with a glass or two of wine or beer, and our admission sales prove the point.  After we obtained our wine & beer license, dinner theater sales went up by 35%.  We’re closed on Sundays.  We get it, but  Jesus made wine, not Welch’s grape juice, and if we enjoy all His gifts in moderation, we are blessed by them.

Pricing

We think those folks who choose the farm as a destination, and those who invest in it, should get REALLY good pricing.  We just have to figure out the schedule of discounts.  I have enormous respect for the pricing experts who establish the formula for a “daily visit” verses an “annual membership.”  I don’t know the coefficients at this point. One guest observed that a $100 a year membership at a local lavender farm still generated a lot of her purchases.  We’re thinking.  What is the formula?  A $100 yearly membership gets you 20% off on all events and 10% off on all food & retail?

Feeding the Soul

One guest writes..

We have also loved that you have never removed God. My dad loves the Christmas Carol dinner but his two main reasons why is the scripture and the prayer said during that meal. These things matter and no other farm is brave like your farm.

People desperately want meaning.  That explains the enormous vitriol we experience in an election year.  Two distinctly different sorts of “meaning” are at war with each other.  If you are the sort of person who takes comfort (sees “meaning”) in a 6’1″ intact biological male using the locker rooms and competing against biological females, or if you are the sort who sees American history as one long, unmitigated chronicle of oppression and thievery, then we might not be selling your brand of “meaning.”  We want to tell the historical truth, and we want that truth to feed the soul, so, in the end, it’s not about splash pads or shade structures.  It’s about that “Sound of Music” feeling you get when someone overcomes evil with good.  For good or ill, that “climb every mountain” epiphany is delivered in air conditioned theaters with comfortable seats, hot popcorn, and wine these days.  All of that costs money, and we’re trying to determine both the product, the environment, and what you would pay to be “re-charged.”

We’re grateful to have this discussion with you.

Categorised in: Farm Journal

This post was written by Jim Riley