RETAIL/TOURISM : Knott’s Hopes Boomerang Ride Gets People to Go There--and Come Back

This is Knott’s Berry Farm’s big week. The long-awaited new roller coaster, Boomerang, opened last Saturday for thrill seekers who like zooming around a torturous, pretzel-like track.

Knott’s officials are hoping that the ride--the first major new attraction at the park since the Bigfoot Rapids flume ride made its debut two years ago--will increase attendance during the crucial spring break period this week. So far, though, its effect on attendance is hard to gauge.

The ride “just opened over the weekend, so it is a little too early to tell,” says Stuart Zanville, a Knott’s spokesman.

Attendance was higher Sunday than it was on the same day last year, he says, but Saturday was bedeviled by this year’s recurring problem--the weather.

There has been “more rain on Saturdays than any year we can remember,” Zanville says.

Knott’s is also promoting the golden anniversary of its Ghost Town, the attraction that started it all in Buena Park 50 years ago. Knott’s founder Walter Knott began putting in original Ghost Town buildings--some of which are authentic relics from the Old West--in 1940 as a way to keeping the hordes occupied as they waited for seats in wife Cordelia Knott’s chicken restaurant.

Knott’s is confident enough of drawing tourists this year to have increased children’s admission prices by $1: Tickets for those ages 3 through 11 are now $17. Other admission prices remain the same.