LT-2022-019-The Patch - Laserfiche WebLink

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COVID-l9lnformatiOn lf yorrlrid:1 ui6tr're.l eren!il-.!oLDa2021 lvheiheriireyvvere:bletcaakeplace.r rlot pledsedescriire?riy s r._ c -as s e s J I rJ c h a I i e n g 6 s y o I J e )< !r e r i e ! I c.t d After '.vigorous" dialogue with the Governor's office and support by the county. we were able to proceed with our event in 2O20...and what an event that was! We had a lot of successes last year. First. we ended our event with no staff/fantily Covid cases and no cases raced back to the farm. We worked hard and were very diligent in keeping everyone safe. Second. we saw a record number of guests. with our out-of-county guests estimaied at topping 50% of our visitors. The challenges last year were also plentiful. One. there was a lot of work and tirne involved in running during Covid. Second. the costs were extreme. For example, the food service gloves we use were typically $Slbox. ln 2020 they were $70 for the same box and we neecled lOttmes as many. This is 1r.ist one example. but overall the cost of various goods was high Third, are labor costs were lhrough the roof. Typtcally, nrost of our staff are tied to a source of direct revenue (i.e. concession workers are generating food revenue. etc.) ln 2020. we were ntore than 25% over jn Iabor costs due to staffthat sinrply disinfected and cleaned things all day. Fourth, we had change our operations to meet Covid requirements. For example. we had buy single use condjments, we purchased an Ag scale to eliminate touching pumpkins. etc. - these changes. as well as the long list of others. led to a lot of extra costs. Fifth, we had to pr"rrchase a lot of goods that were strictly for Covid operations (i.e. signs. partjtions, sarritation stations. etc.). Finally. while guests were overall very grateful to be there. lhere were some "tetnpers" related to Covid requirelnents. Our take away is that we significantly grew our guest numbers. However. that growth didn't all make it to our botionr line grven the costs. And. while we don't expect to see those same numbers this year. we do expect to get a good percentage ofthose same people back (2021) For our own planning and budgeting. we are projecting our sales in 2A21 b be about 75% of 2020. And. while we currently are falling a bit short oi that - we feel like we will be close, making out 2022 projections pretty solid, going back to 10% growth 25iiC char.r.:ter lirnii Addiiional lnformation We want to call out of the fact that our numbers (past and projected) seem a lrtfle wonky - becasue they are. After a crazy 2020, where both attendance and spending was up. we're trying to figure out where our new "norm" is once the dust settles. While Covid was the driving force behind a lot of what we saw h 2020. it was also the first yearwe irnplenrenied paid adnrission - which also brought changes. That said, forthe first time ever, we are pro.jecting lower nurnbers than the year before. For our own planning sake, we approached 2021 as being somewhere between 2019 and 2020 {up from from 2019, but not nearly at 2020 numbers). And. as of this applicaiion, we're able to get a little glirnpse of where we're at so far and it looks like this will hold true. Please see the attached ltnk for a great (we're biased; tourism video we had made last year. We would like you to see this both in conjection with the required video and simply to give you a "tourist eye" view of our evenil: https:/ldrive.google.comldrive/folders/1 osQlVlzgKgYiNiX*Ptyf03kuSawGg_5t? usP=sharing Finally. we no longer offerihe haunted attraction. we scaled backwholesale and rolled most field trips into regular attendance days. As a result, we streamlined our budget to a sinlge line iiem, "patch sales" - as there's no need to break ihings out that were not a part of this funded event (i.e. wholesale orders aren't a part of the event, the haunt was never funded by lodging tax dollars. etc.). 25CiO characier Iiniil