Today we’d like to introduce you to George Richardson.
George Richardson, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
Richardson Farm is located in Spring Grove, IL – just 2 miles from Wisconsin and 20 miles west of Lake Michigan. This puts us within an hour’s drive of millions of people, but it still feels like country out here. Our ancestors couldn’t have known this in 1836 when they homesteaded our first 160 acres, but because of our location and because we like the people business, we have morphed primarily into an agritourism farm.
We have over 500 acres, so we do a little traditional farming (corn and soybeans) but we are primarily focused on having people come to our farm to have fun in the fall, or to buy a Christmas tree (and have fun doing it) in December. In September and October, we host over 80,000 visitors to our Richardson Adventure Farm, home of the “World’s Largest” corn maze. After Thanksgiving, we sell over 8000 Christmas trees – choose and cut, along with 1000 wreaths and greenery. During both seasons we cook up fresh kettle corn, fudge, donuts, and caramel corn – and it is delicious!
Robert and George (fifth generation) both graduated the University of Illinois and had “real” jobs for a few years before coming back to farm with our parents. We concentrated on raising pigs – almost 3000 birth to market. We planted 1000 Christmas tree seedlings in 1981 as a little side hobby and kept that up every year, and then sold the first ones 6 years later. After 10 years of selling Christmas trees, we realized we liked talking with people more than talking with pigs, and people provided a more steady income!
After 22 years in the pig business and having bought out our parents, we quit raising pigs and put in a corn maze. We decided as long as we were at it, we would just be the “World’s Largest”. It went well the first few years and as we made some money, we invested back in the business. We grew slowly and carefully, with a lot of thought about what would provide the best experience for our customers and we are now happily in our 18th year.
We have 530 acres in our farm and 92 of those were bought within the last few years at subdivision prices-over a million dollars!. It killed us to buy them, but, long-term, we knew we needed them. Very approximately, we have about 140 acres devoted to the Christmas tree business, 80 acres for the fall business, and 230 acres of corn and soybeans, plus some miscellaneous areas.
Our wives, Carol (Robert) and Wendy (George), are very important in the business – involved in all the decisions, and managing the payroll, marketing, website, accounting, employee management, retail, wreath production, and a hundred other things. In 2007, George’s son, Ryan (sixth generation) and wife, Kristen, bought into the business (and started producing the seventh generation) so there are three families full time in the business.
We still maintain our status as the “World’s Largest”, most intricately designed corn maze. We spend a lot of time and effort designing and making a very intricate, spectacular “picture” in the cornfield. People love it when they see the aerial picture of our maze on their maps, on our website, or in the media.
Just because it’s big doesn’t mean you will get lost! We don’t think people enjoy feeling trapped in a cornfield or lost forever wondering how they are going to get out! So, we design our mazes with no dead ends – nobody gets lost! Everyone gets a map with 24 checkpoints marked and they try to find the checkpoints. It’s fairly easy to get in and out of the maze so they can spend as much time as they want to solve the maze, but keeping track of where you are and figuring out which way to go can be tricky! Finding all of the checkpoints usually takes up to 2 hours and earns a beautiful, full-color certificate which we happily tell everyone is “suitable for framing” – and the folks are proud to receive it!
There are 5 games within the maze including a quiz trail in one section, and two different kid trails where moms can take their kids into the big maze, get up on a bridge, and NOT get lost!
Outside of the maze, there are over 30 activities including slides, pedal carts, a tracked train ride, jumping pillows, a 30-horse carousel, pig races, a 50’ tall observation tower at the base of the maze, and animals to view. For an additional charge, we offer a 650′ long zip line, Zorbing (rolling down a hill inside an 11’ diameter ball), paintball shooting gallery, complete concessions, pumpkins, fresh donuts, fudge, kettle corn, caramel corn, and more! We also have a hundred private, wooded campfire/ picnic sites available which groups can rent for the afternoon or evening.
We have a whole separate area for younger kids but, we have a lot of things for older people too. We get a lot of early teens, high school groups, 20 something’s, 30 something’s -some with kids, 40 something’s with kids or in groups, 50 something’s, 60 somethings and grandmas and grandpas! One fact that helps us get such a broad age range of customer is that we are open late – until 11 pm on Fridays and Saturdays. We have gentle lighting throughout the activities and picnic areas. Navigating the mazes by flashlight or the light of the moon is extra fun – and challenging! Nearly half of our customers come after 5 pm and it’s very fun at night.
It is great to be within an hours drive of millions of people, BUT there are also a million other things those folks could be doing besides coming to our farm, so we have to work really hard to provide a great experience. We strive to keep a country feel to our farm, but with a very clean appearance, nice buildings, good food, real restrooms, and lots of things to do for all ages. It’s expensive to provide all that – we have over 300 employees part-time in all areas of customer service! Our attendance has been growing and we are selling more Christmas trees! We love the business. Come see us sometime!
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
It has been pretty smooth. We are very careful with our planning and we hire experts when we don’t know something. For example, in 2014, we moved the entire fall business to a whole new site with larger and improved parking, infrastructure (water and septic), walking paths, picnic areas, and buildings. We ended up hiring an entertainment planner to figure out the best layout of our current and future activities, food offerings, gift shop, entrance and exit people flow, and a host of other things. It has worked out very well.
Struggles? Well, people are funny sometimes: when we spent over $50,000 on nice indoor plumbed restrooms, some people complained that they were not large enough! they said, “Really? Only 5 stalls for all these people?” Hard to please everyone!
Please tell us about Richardson Farm.
A lot of that was already covered in my earlier description, but what I can say here is that we spend a lot of time and money to help make sure the customer experience is very good. We are not just a farm with pumpkins! We offer a wide range of experiences to appeal to a wide age range. One other thing unique about us compared to other farms is that we are open until 11 pm Fridays and Saturdays for a whole different twist on the corn maze, campfires, and activities at night. The long hours are hard on us, but we feel that lots of people appreciate the option of coming at night.
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
The move to an entirely different area after 13 years in the fall agritainment business was very time-consuming and very expensive. If we had known that we would get such large attendance, we would have designed the layout differently from the start.
Of course, we could not have predicted that, and we would not have spent the extra money in infrastructure before we had a proven business model, so my last statement has to be taken in that context. The future success of an enterprise can’t be predicted, and I still think it’s best to invest in improvements after having growth, so a person ins not borrowing a lot of money on an unproven concept.
Pricing:
- We charge one admission upfront that covers most of the activities – $16 adults, $13 children
Contact Info:
- Website: www.RichardsonFarm.com
- Phone: Richardson Adventure Farm and Richardson Christmas Trees
- Twitter: Richardson Adventure Farm and Richardson Christmas Trees
- Instagram: Richardson Adventure Farm and Richardson Christmas Trees
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