The comparisons between Karls and Knott’s Berry Farm are obvious. The South California theme park was famously founded by Walter Knott in the 1920s with a roadside stall in Buena Park selling boysenberries while his wife Cordelia served chicken dinners.
Karls – which now has five Erlebnis-Dorf (experience village) sites in northeast Germany – can trace its roots back to 1921. That’s when Karl Dahl founded a fruit farm in the small village of Mecklenburg, not far from the company’s current headquarters in Rövershagen near Rostock. After the war, he relocated to Ostholstein in East Germany and began making strawberry jam.
His son Karl-Heinz Dahl carried on the business, but following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the market became flooded with cheap strawberries from Poland. After spotting a whimsical red kiosk selling the fruit at the Wimbledon tennis championships in London, Karl-Heinz’s daughter Ulrike (Robert Dahl’s sister) brought the idea back to Germany and now Karls serves 100,000 customers a day from such units.
It would be some years later, under Robert’s direction, that Karls entered the attractions business.
Knott’s began their amusement park journey much earlier in the USA when Walter Knott built Ghost Town (now one of four themed lands at Knott’s Berry Farm) in 1940. Yet the way in which the Dahl family has put its unique stamp on both the themed attraction and ‘experiential’ retail industry over the past two decades is impressive.
Old school experiences
“We love old materials,” says Karls owner Robert Dahl. His in-house team of designers are masters of upcycling and know exactly how to bring his rustic vision to life. “I have got a lot of ideas, and I tried to learn how to draw, but I stopped because I have no talent for it. Our design team understand me well after so many years, and also have a lot of their own ideas.”
The theming of Karls’ rides and attractions is quirky. As well as multiple strawberry-themed experiences, Karls Erlebnis-Dorf Elstal near Berlin showcases such offerings as a roller coaster celebrating the potato chip, a gummy bear land and a flying carpet ride against a wall of coffee pots.
In total, there are over 200 attractions and experiences across Karls’ five sites. These include also experience villages in Rövershagen, Zirkow, Warnsdorf and Koserow. In addition, the company has a food, drink and retail operation at Rostock cruise terminal as well as the historic Barbycafé restaurant in Loburg, east of Magdeburg. There are plans, however, to expand across Germany. A sixth village will open this spring and more are in the pipeline.
“All our attractions are suitable for children up to 12 years of age,” says Dahl. “In Elstal, we also have some interesting rides for maybe 14 or 15 years or adults. But for teenagers after the age of 15, we do not want to reach them.”
Food manufacturing front and centre
Integral to each Karls location is a large farm shop and live food manufacturing operation. According to each site, there are daily demonstrations in jam, bread, cake, chocolate, candy, ice cream, sausage and even soap making. And the aromas are mouth-watering.
“Our staff talk about what they are doing,” says Dahl. “You are in the middle of everything; we don’t want our factories to be hidden away from visitors.”
Each year the company’s employees fill around six million jars of jam, including the top-selling Erdbeer Traum (Strawberry Dream). Yet while Karls may be a household name in Germany, you won’t find its products in any supermarkets.
“Not anymore,” says Dahl. “To do this kind of handmade production and then reduce your price so that the supermarket can earn money is difficult, so we stopped that. The idea is that people should come to us and buy these things.”
The details are in the retail
So important is the retail offer to the Karls Erlebnis-Dorf business model, that admission to each site is free. Guests buy tickets for the rides, but several experiences can be enjoyed free of charge.
“Many people buy a day pass, but they don’t have to,” says Dahl. “Most of our revenue we do by selling goods. If people are not paying an entrance fee, they are happy to go shopping.”
Retail spend per head averages over €20, and the annual attendance across the current five experience villages is around 6.5 million. Rövershagen is the busiest with around 1.6 million annual visits, closely followed by Elstal with 1.4 million. The others do between 800,000 and 950,000 each.
There are around 170,000 Karls year card holders. Priced at €35, these offer exceptional value given they allow the use of most rides and attractions at each Karls Erlebnis-Dorf. Hearty food and drink can be enjoyed in the restaurant, while fruity beverages, preserves and sauces are for sale both on-site and online. Non-food items include everything from Karls merchandise to a strawberry-themed toilet seat!
The tractor ride that turned Karls into an attraction
When Robert Dahl launched Karls’ current strawberry farm operation in Rövershagen in 1993, a small playground was part of the offering. This acted as a simple diversion for kids as their parents/grandparents enjoyed coffee and cake.
Later it was rebranded Karls Erlebnis-Hof. However, the park concept did not come along until 2007 when Dahl spotted a picture of a tractor ride in an amusement industry journal. After visiting Märchenpark Neusiedlersee (now Familypark) in Austria, he signed a contract with ABC Rides to buy one.
“We put it next to our strawberry shop. Around the tractor ride, we assembled some bigger playgrounds and a small restaurant. From that moment, on the 1st of May 2008, we called ourselves Karls Erlebnis-Dorf.”
A trip to the IAAPA exhibition later that year in Las Vegas gave him an introduction to the wider attractions industry. “That was a huge surprise,” says Dahl. “When you enter a new industry for the first time, you cannot imagine how many exhibitors there are. From Zamperla came our second ride [Barnyard], which we called the flying cow shack [Fliegender Kuhstall].”
Karls Erlebnis-Dorf expands
After success in Rövershagen, Karls began to roll the Erlebnis-Dorf brand out to other locations along the Baltic Sea. Zirkow in 2012 was followed two years later by Warnsdorf and then Koserow in 2016. In between that came the inland Karls Erlebnis-Dorf Elstal. Launched in 2014, this was chosen for its proximity to the German capital, being the site of the 1936 Berlin Olympic Village.
It was here that Karls opened its first roller coaster in 2018, which provided something of a learning curve.
“The tractor ride was simple,” says Dahl. “The coaster was very challenging for us though. We had no experience of this kind of thing and the maintenance you must do every day. But it was very good for Karls to have this challenge. We learned a lot of things and it was good training for our future.”
Dedicated to Robert Dahl’s father and grandfather, K2 is a tube coaster from ABC. The ride features a beautiful pre-show set inside the family former’s home. It is here we learn that, before he harvested strawberries, Karl Dahl grew potatoes. After riding around the track in delivery ‘boxes’, guests can buy potato chips in an adjoining shop/restaurant.
From strawberry coasters to sand sculptures
There are now roller coasters of one kind or another at each Karls Erlebnis-Dorf. These range from the parent-powered Knollis Mini-K2 rides in Warnsdorf, Koserow and Elstal to to Fliegender Regenschirm (Zamperla Disk’O Coaster) and \ Poggys Wolkenexpress (SBF/Visa monorail coaster) in Elstal. All sites except Warnsdorf also have a strawberry-themed caterpillar coaster. Other ride offerings come from ART Engineering, Gerstlauer, Technical Park, Sunkid and Zierer.
Additional activities and experiences across the various sites include multiple slides, indoor and outdoor playgrounds, play fountains, mazes, kids’ diggers, train rides and pony rides. There are also farm exhibits, animatronic shows and shooting galleries. Guess can learn the story of strawberries in cinemas inside a converted bus, barn or farm wagon.
After the introduction of Eiswelt (Ice World) in Elstal, a 365-day ice sculpture exhibition was introduced last November at Karls Erlebnis-Dorf Rövershagen, which also has its own aquarium. Both these sites also hosted popular light shows over the festive season. Meanwhile, the 14th Warnemünder Sandwelt will bring some world-class sand sculptures to Karls Pier7 in Rostock this spring.
Rolling out the Karls brand nationwide
To date, the strawberry specialist has invested around €160 million in its experience villages. The sixth, Karls Erlebnis-Dorf Döbeln will open this March in the state of Saxony at a cost of around €25 million. This represents Karls’ most southerly location yet. Alongside various tried and tested attractions, and of course all that delicious food, beverage and retail, guests can look forward to a sausage-themed area called Bockwurst World.
In Lower Saxony, which is actually north of Saxony, the smaller Karls Erlebnis-Dorf Loxstedt will open in 2025.
Karls will truly be able to call itself a national chain after it launches Erlebnis-Dorfs in North Rhine-Westphalia and Bavaria in 2025. The experience villages being developed in each of these states are transformations of former amusement parks. The latter, north of Nuremberg, will be named Karls Erlebnis-Dorf Plech. It will replace the former Fränkisches Wunderland, which ceased trading a decade ago.
Meanwhile, Karls Erlebnis-Dorf Oberhausen is under development next to the city’s Westfield Centro shopping mall. The site was operated as CentrO Park from 1996 to 2011, before being acquired by Merlin Entertainments. The industry giant operated a handful of attractions there from 2013 to 2015, initially to support its Sea Life operation next door. However, it was never able to make a go of it as a standalone park.
It is hoped the Karls brand and free-to-enter offer will charm families in what is one of the most populous parts of Germany.
Karls’ careful expansion
The location of the park in Oberhausen means jars of Karls jam are likely to make their way into Dutch households too. Already 25% of visitors to Karls’ sites are Polish. And there is an even higher percentage at Karls Erlebnis-Dorf Kozerow, just 16km from the Polish border. Dahl cites both nations as possible expansion opportunities in future.
In Germany, the plan is that eventually, everyone should be no more than one hour’s drive from a Karls outlet. That would require 22 locations nationwide.
Dahl says he is wary of franchising Karls. “We looked at it some years ago, but it would be too complicated to control. So we keep everything inside Karls.”
He is proud of the fact that the company has been able to manage its recent expansion without any external investment. “We spend only the money we earn. That is our growing speed, and I try to keep it that way. It’s better for your sleep!”
Sleeping among the strawberries
As well as the new German sites opening in 2024 and 2025, there are big plans for Karls Erlebnis-Dorf Elstal. “It’s a huge site,” says Dahl. “It took four years for us to get planning permission for everything we want to do.”
Since only part of the nearly 8-hectare site has been developed to date, it offers huge potential. Both a waterpark and themed accommodation are planned. The latter follows the opening of Alles Paletti – Karls Upcycling-Hotel – at the firm’s HQ in Rövershagen, plus a smaller hotel and cottages at other locations. Amongst various upcycled features, the larger property features stairs fashioned from chairs that kids must climb to reach beds made of pallets.
“We built the hotel to gain more knowledge about accommodation and train for what we want to do in Berlin,” says Dahl. “We have got permission for 4,000 beds in total, including two of our new sites in Germany. So we will do some different hotels and maybe some cottages and tents.”
Bibi, Tina and Karls’ big plans for the future
With such a well-honed and defined brand that defies each park’s age, it may seem odd to learn that Karls will integrate an external intellectual property (IP) during the next leg of its journey in Elstal.
“This summer we will open Bibi & Tina Freizeitpark,” Dahl tells us. “Bibi & Tina is a very well-known German brand owned by a Berlin family. They will bring a lot of visitors to Karls.”
The tales of two horse-riding girls have been entertaining fans for over 35 years in books and radio plays. There is also now a TV series on Prime. This intergenerational appeal helps explain why Karls is partnering with Kiddinx to give Bini & Tina their own 60,000 square metre area at what is set to become Karls’ flagship site in the years to come.
“With Bibi & Tina, the waterpark and all the accommodation possibilities in future, I think it will be a great place to go for families,” says Dahl. When all of this is complete, he predicts visitor numbers at Karls Erlebnis-Dorf Elstal could reach as high as 3 million a year.
With its combined attendance across sites, Karls has already become one of Germany’s top theme park players, in just 15 years. Its business model may be a little different to the pay-one-price parks, but it does things with heart. In return, millions of guests love it back. And that loyalty lives on in their kitchen cupboards long after they visit.
