Lifestyle
The hootin'-hollerin' allure of Knott's Berry Farm's summer staple Ghost Town Alive!
“Have you ever pickpocketed?”
No, I have not. At Knott’s Berry Farm, it was suggested I give it a try.
Thieving, the man gushed, is freeing, and, by it’s very nature, comes with a reward — or spoils. But I was in the presence of an unreliable narrator, for I was leading “Honest” Cody Sullivan to theme park prison, that is, a single cell in the middle of the Knott’s historic old West-themed Ghost Town. Sullivan’s recent crime? Stealing a judge’s gavel.
I have never worked for a sheriff’s department, either, but at Knott’s annual summertime offering Ghost Town Alive! one can roleplay just about whoever they want. As long as it’s silly.
On a recent visit, I started my day as a mail courier, which led to me meeting an elixir specialist, where we wondered about a cure to “duck pox,” but before any fictional diseases were tackled I was conspiring with a local hotelier, imagining ways to conceal a mice problem. This transpired in less than an hour, as narratives in Ghost Town Alive! come quick and spiral into lunacy. You may encounter someone who is quacking — the aforementioned duck pox — or be pulled aside and handed a sack of play money, a stolen good one Ghost Town “resident” was hoping could be used to win the affections of another.
Come ready to contribute. But if you don’t, participation will find you. I was standing idly when approached to arrest Sullivan, portrayed by actor Josh Williams.
In the Ghost Town Alive! experience, Josh Williams, left, performs as “Honest” Cody Sullivan and Evan Battle plays Deputy Chester Davenport.
There is nothing at any theme park quite like Ghost Town Alive! Part live action role-playing game and part work of improvisational theater, Ghost Town Alive! brings with it daily storylines, including multiple editions of a newspaper, and a cadre of wacky characters. A Knott’s staple since 2016 — Ghost Town Alive! has its roots and influences in Disneyland’s beloved but fleeting Legends of Frontierland — the experience has matured into one of the most unique and creative theme park offerings in Southern California.
The key to its long-term success? Ghost Town Alive! understands the heart and soul of what makes a great theme park experience: It’s the people, and our ability to connect and play with them.
“People’s lives are deeply impacted by the work that we do here,” says actor Rachel Roman, who plays postmaster Shelly Melson. Before Roman broke character to chat, her Melson had been gossiping about her coworker, Buttons, noting the latter had been littering. Apparently Buttons had been dropping, well, buttons, throughout the fictional town of Calico.
Annabelle Pancake, 11, right, of Anaheim, plays a Calico Gazette reporter interviewing a postal worker, played by Rachel Roman.
A participant holds the Calico Gazette daily newspaper.
A sign welcomes visitors to Calico’s Founder’s Day.
“There’s a range of guests, and ones that you will cherish, like this little kid who comes in,” Roman says. “She’s my little best friend. We each get our own little besties. Her parents just go on about how she won’t stop talking about Shelly. She’s so sweet and fun to play with. I was on the other side of this as a kid. I grew up going to theme parks with my dad and was that passholder kid who all the performers knew.”
Ghost Town Alive! treats the theme park as a stage, allowing guests to become actors. It’s a nod to the roots of Knott’s, when the park lacked thrill rides and specialized in Wild West stagecraft. A song-and-dance-style revue runs concurrently with Ghost Town Alive!, all of it lending Calico a lived-in, heavily populated feel. Rovin Jay, show director, says the park employs 45 actors for the performances.
This summer, I got my name printed in the Calico Gazette, learned about misguided experiments that inspired theme park trickery — one involved electricity, a potato and resulted in a late afternoon explosion — and was a jury member in the case of a stolen 100 pound catfish. I was sworn in as a resident of Calico, took a journalistic oath for the town’s newspaper — I promised to tell the truth, except “when gossip will do” — and earned my first Calico wooden coin. “You can’t spend it on much, but it’s priceless in sentimental value,” I was told.
Another day I walked into Ghost Town and was asked, almost immediately, if I wanted a bucket of water dumped on me (I did not). I also took part in a plot to use melted cheese to free a prisoner. It made sense in the moment. Theories in Ghost Town Alive! need not be plausible. This is a space where imagination is not just off the leash, but untamed.
“It’s the thing we used to do when we were 6 or 7 and in the playground,” Jay says. “Friends come up and you just create. We’re able to do that here on a daily basis.”
Rachel Hanson, left, performs as Thelma Kinkade and Josh Williams performs as “Honest” Cody Sullivan in front of Goldie’s Hotel.
Some of these events happen everyday, but each afternoon — Ghost Town Alive! runs on select days through Sept. 2 from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. — is also full of off-the-cuff narratives. Perhaps you’ll be asked to act in a moving-picture show, participate in a mustache contest, take a drawing class, help a gang rob a bank or inspire a bashful Calico resident to ask a lady to the afternoon hoedown. Guests, Roman says, “get very invested in our love lives.”
To describe the appeal of the show, Jay asks me to visualize a stereotypical theme park advertisement — say of a known character holding the hand of a young child.
“It’s a promise that you are going to have an unique and personal interaction with a character,” Jay says. “We’re able to deliver that, and we’re able to deliver that organically. It’s so funny to me how often we’ll have guests come in and say, ‘When is the show going to start?’ Meanwhile, the bank is getting robbed. These are characters you learn to exist with. You’re seen automatically. The moment you step into Ghost Town Alive!, it’s, ‘Hi! It’s nice to see you.’”
To make a theme park feel personal is no easy feat. In fact, designers have long been trying to solve this problem, be it creating interactive attractions that feel responsive to the guest, or short-lived experiments such as the Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser, colloquially known as the Star Wars hotel.
The antecedent to Ghost Town Alive!, Disney’s Legends of Frontierland (both shared some of the same creative team), lasted a few months. And prior to the opening of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge at Disneyland in 2019, Disney creatives talked heavily of a land filled with actors and live shows, a reality that has never fully materialized.
Justyn High performs as Marybelle Starling. John Guirguis performs as Jackknife Blacksmith. Visitors talk to Evan Battle, center, who plays Deputy Chester Davenport.
“I’ve gone through Galaxy’s Edge several times, and have often wondered what it would take to people that town,” Jay says. “It would be five or 10 times as many people on the roster. Daily, you’d have to have a couple hundred people just to make it feel alive and organic. There’s so many nooks and crannies there. We just have a couple streets that were part of our original design. The scalability is a challenge.”
And to guests, it’s an investment that’s worth it.
Janey Ellis, 36, of Anaheim, is a Ghost Town Alive! regular. Ellis recently made the Calico Gazette with a tale of a fence that sprouted legs and walked off its property. Ellis comes to Knott’s to experience that sort of “B-plot chaos.” “I’m here to see what you can create out of nothing,” she says.
“I think this is the future of theme park entertainment,” Ellis says. “This is so unique and personal. You’re able to drive something for hours on end. This is a real-life video game, or a real-life [‘Dungeons & Dragons’] game.”
And a reminder that one not need the latest technology. Sometimes a playground, a bit of imagination and the joy of performance will do. Just be careful who you pickpocket.
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My husband and I live in Pasadena. We moved from Los Feliz about 10 years ago. We have struggled to find LGBTQ+ events this far east. We can only hit up Boulevard so many times (although we love it). Any advice for finding LGBTQ+ events in Pasadena, Eagle Rock, Highland Park, Glendale or the SGV? I feel like there are bars out here that may host weekly events that I just don’t hear about. — Will Birnie
Looking for things to do in L.A.? Ask us your questions and our expert guides will share highly specific recommendations.
Here’s what we suggest:
Will, you are so right. While there are several queer bars around your former neighborhood (Hi Tops in Los Feliz, Akbar in Silver Lake, Club Bahia in Echo Park and Honey’s at Star Love in East Hollywood), they are few and far between in the eastern part of L.A. County. But your question sent me down a rabbit hole and I’m proud to report that I’ve found a handful of spots and regular events that you should check out in your area. (Shout out to my colleagues and everyone who responded to my request for help on Instagram.)
Highland Park is home to the Offbeat, which is one of my friend Jaycen Mitchell‘s favorite bars in the area. The beloved dive bar hosts karaoke nights, drag shows, live music performances, “RuPaul’s Drag Race” screenings and other themed nights throughout the week. “I’ve been able to see all of my favorite drag queens there in more intimate settings, and the DJs have had me and my friends dancing until we were the last ones there,” Mitchell tells me. Also in Highland Park is Blind Barber, a speakeasy that hosts Homo Happy Hour on Thursdays. Mitchell says the happy hour is always a good time and a chance to “show up as your authentic self, be in community and queen out with your girls.”
Then in Glendale, there’s Junior High, a nonprofit art gallery and inclusive gathering space that hosts a variety of events, including music shows, artist showcases, comedy nights, pottery workshops and more. A standout event is Fantasy Suite, a pole dance show that features queer dancers with varying body types. Cherry Jayne and Jax “Lil Sumthin” launched the queer strip club experience in 2022 after struggling to find work due to “fatphobia that plagues traditional strip club hiring,” they told me. The next event will take place Feb. 7 and will feature Valentine’s Day songs of love, lust and heartbreak.
At Footsies in Cypress Park, Latino queer artist and DJ Mino Sanchez and his boyfriend, Ivan Castaneda, who also DJs, have been hosting Gay Night for nearly four years. The event, which happens on the second Saturday of each month, features BIPOC queer DJs who spin house, disco, Spanish dance music, electronica, pop and international sounds. There’s also a drag performance at midnight. In El Monte, the San Gabriel Valley LGBTQ Center hosts Gayme Night on the third Thursday of every month. The all-ages event features karaoke along with video and board games.
And you already know and love Boulevard — it really is a gem (and it’s the only gay bar in Pasadena). Though it was at risk of closing during the pandemic, the 45-year-old bar survived and continues to host a drag trivia night on Tuesdays and a drag show on Friday nights hosted by Borgia Bloom Facade. Times food columnist Jenn Harris writes that the Boulevard bar has served as a “safe haven for the gay community in the area and an alternative to the West Hollywood bar scene.”
If you’re looking for a different type of community beyond bars and events, my colleague Jaclyn Cosgrove recommends Throop Unitarian Universalist Church in Pasadena. “My pastor, Rev. Tera Landers, likes to say she doesn’t like religion, but she loves church,” says Cosgrove, who also lives in Pasadena. “That’s in large part because of the community we have at [the church] including our choir, which has a large number of transgender and queer members. It is where I go to refill my cup every Sunday.”
I hope this list helps you and your husband find more spaces around your neighborhood to build community and have a great time.
Ariana Grande arrives at the 83rd Golden Globes on Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, Calif.
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The brightest stars in TV and film kicked off the 83rd annual Golden Globes tonight in Beverly Hills, Calif. with Ariana Grande, Noah Wyle, Teyana Taylor and George Clooney are just some the names who walked the red carpet. This year’s ceremony was hosted by comedian Nikki Glaser.
Here’s a glimpse of what some of the attendees are wearing tonight.
Michael B. Jordan
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