Funworld JULY 2007

Arcade Queen of Knoebels

by Tim O’Brien

Leanna Muscato lends her business savvy and creative vision to a midway of winnable, beautifully themed, and profitable games

Leanna Knoebel Muscato and her two brothers grew up as park rats—playing, working, and living the life that only a family member of a family-owned amusement park could imagine.

Muscato is the kid sister of Buddy and Dick Knoebel, all now owners of the popular Knoebels Amusement Resort, founded by their grandfather, in Elysburg, Pennsylvania. She grew up in the park under the watchful eye of her two older brothers, eight and 12 years her elder. They both watched out for her, but because her father passed away six weeks before her birth, Dick, her oldest brother, “helped raise me as a father would,” she tells FUNWORLD.

From her early jobs of paper picking and wrapping loose change and “just about everything else,” Muscato took over the games after returning home from college in 1973. “I had worked the games during the summer, but when I returned after graduating, my uncle Pete [Knoebel] asked me if I would consider overseeing that area,” she says.

Home from College
During the first couple years following college, Muscato spent the winters helping to restore carousel horses, while landing a position as a substitute teacher in the local school district. Her degree from East Stroudsburg University was in health and physical education. “I wanted to teach locally, but it took me two years to get a full-time job,” she notes.

For the next 31 years, she combined her teaching and her games position into a very busy, often hectic schedule. “Each year, teaching was becoming more complex with more and more paperwork being involved and that in turn created a bigger demand for my time. My responsibility at the park in the winter, buying and stocking redemption prizes, was also becoming a bigger job, so I decided to quit juggling both careers, call it quits, and retire [from teaching] in 2006,” she says. “I was getting burned out.”

Today, as games manager, she is responsible for 23 of the park’s games, oversees one of the merchandise shops, and directs the annual senior citizens day event. As a Life Scout and an active member for 45 years, Muscato also helps out with the Girl Scout portion of the Scout Day event.

Leanna Knoebel met Joe Muscato at the park in the early 1980s, fell in love, and they were married. Joe often jokes that he “was hired to be Leanna’s husband,” but in reality, he is the park’s advertising and marketing director.

“I was teaching in the area in 1981 and Buddy [Knoebel] asked me if I would be interested in helping with the park’s advertising,” recalls Joe. “I came by the park, and Buddy took me around on his golf cart and we saw Leanna. We stopped, I got off the cart, started talking with Leanna, and he drove away,” leaving the two out in the middle of the forested park. Was it love at first sight? “Not really, I was more concerned about being stranded in the wilderness,” Joe laughs.

He started consulting with Knoebels on a part-time basis in 1981, while keeping his teaching position. The two were married on May 21, 1982, and he stayed part-time until November 1987.

The couple’s daughter, Lauren, was born in 1987, and she too became a park rat. Lauren is now in college, and along with her Knoebel cousins, Rick, Brian, Stacey, and Trevor, purchased the adjacent golf course, now known as Knoebels 3-Pond Golf. While studying to be a film editor, Lauren will serve as the golf course’s bookkeeper during her school breaks.

Muscato’s first “official” job at the park was when she was 6 years old, in 1957. She worked the fish pond. “I remember that day very well,” she says. “I was in the first grade, and it was on a Sunday. I worked it from open to close for 25 cents an hour. I made $2.25 that day, and I thought I had died and gone to heaven!”

Working at Knoebels today is truly a family affair. At any one time there are more than a dozen family members working at the park. Also, at any one time, “one or more of us are totally sick and tired of one or more of the rest of us,” laughs Joe. “But being an in-law, it’s easier. I can step back and observe.”

Both Buddy and Dick say having the family together is certainly a plus for the family operation. “Our family goes way beyond just us three siblings,” Buddy points out. “There are the three of us, plus our kids and cousins. That makes it easier to get together for family celebrations, like birthdays.” Buddy adds that while they all work there and see one another daily, there are few times “that all of us are in the same place at the same time.”

“That’s very true,” Muscato adds. “We interact throughout the day, but mostly to say hello to each other in passing. When we do need to work directly with each other, we work together well.”

A Different Operating Model
Being a free-admission park, Knoebels has a large percentage of repeat visita tion, meaning the games have a high percentage of repeat customers. In an effort to keep the games fresh, new, and exciting for all those repeats, Muscato needs to continually change them around. She rarely themes game merchandise for an entire season. “That just doesn’t work for us because I have to keep giving things a fresh, new look,” she says. “I never buy huge quantities of any one item.”

She has converted three of her four race games, the “Derby Race,” “Killer Beez,” and “Shooting Waters,” which traditionally require a prize for every winner, into redemption games with coupons being distributed. “It’s unusual to hand out coupons instead of throwing a dog across the counter as a prize,” she notes. “But again, with such a repeat business, a redeemable coupon is a much better prize.” Prize coupons at Knoebels never expire so many guests save theirs from one year to another to garner a larger prize. “Last summer we redeemed some coupons that were at least 30 years old,” she says.

Muscato believes in making every game both winnable and affordable. She also adheres to the philosophy that when people play they have the hopes of winning but they expect to have fun. “Many of our games have a winner every time and only one game costs more than $1 to play,” she points out. “We still have many quarter games, but our new Skee Ball ‘Giant Crane’ costs $2 a play. We keep everything very family oriented. There are no hard-sell agents, and the use of microphones is very, very limited.”

Muscato shows an artistic side when she “dresses up” the game locations with various decors and fresh paint. “One day, I stopped by one of the games and found that a substitute operator had given one of my decorations away as a prize,” she laughs.

Dick Knoebel says Muscato has always had a deep interest in the success of the park’s games operation. “Not only is she an astute buyer, but she closely watches returns and payouts,” he says. “She also has a good handle on sticky fingers and it was her idea to have video surveillance at each of our game locations. That has cut down theft tremendously.”

Her favorite game to play at the park is Bob’s Space Racers’ “Dog Pounder,” and her most profitable is the goblet game: “This summer, we plan to have fun with the goblet game and create a pirate theme for it a couple times. Those who work it will dress up like pirates. It will be fun.”

During peak season, Muscato has a staff of 120 for her 23 games. There are two arcades in the park, with one operated as a concession by the Kadel family since the 1930s. In addition to her regular staff, she occasionally calls on members of the maintenance crew to help her run a few games during the shoulder seasons when she’s in a pinch. “They are an amazing group who are always very willing to fill in when I need them,” she says. “That cooperation is really important all the time, but they are also incredibly responsive during the season when I need a quick fix for a game or a sign.”

She considers herself the general manager of the game team: “It’s really team work, and I am blessed with a great staff. On average we get a return rate of 80 percent, but this summer that figure will be lower because a lot of the regular kids have graduated and are moving on. This year is a big hire year for us.”

At the end of the season and into the fall, Muscato has a problem, as do most parks, with staffing. That’s when she has a regular core of adults show up to help. She also brings in various groups to help out and she then “pays” the organization for its members’ help. Her most active group is the Daughters of the American Revolution. “They have been tremendous help to us for many years,” she says.

Muscato’s brothers are in awe of her ability to solve problems creatively. “She has always been very resourceful,” says her brother Buddy. “She has tremendous energy, and her relationship with her staff, her family, and her suppliers is amazing. She’s always doing something, and like Dick and me, she can’t stay still for a minute! She’s not only our sister, but she’s of great value to the park as well.”

Showbiz in Her Blood
Three years ago, Muscato’s husband Joe sur prised her with a Raffin 20/40 street organ for her birthday, a present she still calls “wonderful and amazing.” Built in Uberlingen Germany in 2004, the hand-crank organ is mounted on wheels. On many Sundays, guests can see Muscato pushing the cart around, complete with a plush monkey, stopping at her favorite locations to crank out a few songs. “When I get everything opened and the staff has everything under control, which most often happens on Sunday morning, I’ll get the organ out and enjoy sharing the music with our guests. I love it, as do they,” she says.

Currently Muscato is a member of the IAAPA Games Committee and is slated to help out at two games-related educational sessions at IAAPA Attractions Expo 2007 this November in Orlando. She will chair the popular games roundtable sessions during which games operators talk about their successes. “There’s always a great deal to be learned from that session,” she says. Muscato will also provide energy on the panel in which the problem of hiring and retaining employees is discussed.