Video / Photos: Ghost Town Alive! Immersive Wild-West Experience Is More Fun Than Ever at Knott's Berry Farm

This past weekend marked the kickoff of Ghost Town Alive! and Knott’s Summer Nights for the 2025 summer season at Knott’s Berry Farm in Southern California, and Laughing Place was invited down to the beloved theme park to check out the celebration. Below you will find my photos and video from the experience.

In the embedded YouTube video below, you can watch the first couple scenes of this year’s Ghost Town Alive! just to give you a taste of what the experience is like. Bear in mind that many of the most rewarding moments come through interactions with the citizens of Calico in-between scripted events such as these.

Watch Ghost Town Alive! 2025 opening scenes at Knott's Berry Farm:

Rewinding time a little, we arrived at the entrance to Knott’s Berry Farm to find the usual attractive signage and decor around the front of the park.

Then once we approached the Ghost Town area of Knott’s, we found the Calico townsfolk preparing for Founder’s Day and the traditional ribbon-cutting ceremony that officially gets the proceedings underway.

As I noted above, in between show moments we spent some time interacting with the citizens of Calico. Those who are prepared to have a significantly more immersive adventure can find lots of tasks and missions to accomplish around Ghost Town.

At one point the members of my group even got our names in the Calico Gazette newspaper, and later on I was briefly granted the key to the city by Mayor Milton C. Howell for having helped out so many townspeople throughout the day.

As the story progresses across a full seven hours, expect lots of fun twists and turns, shady dealings, bank robberies, shootouts in the streets of Calico, and plenty more opportunities for guests to become part of the action.

This year it all builds up to the Calico Founder’s Day Parade (guests of all ages are invited to participate in this as well), which leads to the big Hoedown in Town Square, during which most of the narrative threads are resolved.

You may also want to put on your dancing shoes if you plan to celebrate with the Calico locals, as you’ll see in the embedded X video below.

Other live shows available around Knott’s Berry Farm during Ghost Town Alive! and Knott’s Summer Nights are Miss Cameo Kate’s Western Burle-Q Revue in the Bird Cage Theatre, Mic Dangerously and the Royal We on the Calico Mine Stage, and Krazy Kirk and the Hillbillies (formerly Disneyland’s Billy Hill and the Hillbillies) on the Wagon Camp Stage.

During one of our short breaks from Ghost Town Alive! we wandered through the Camp Snoopy area of Knott’s, where we found a new carnival game called Huff & Puff Hill Climbers, and we saw Snoopy and Schroeder from the Peanuts gang meeting and greeting guests where the old Camp Snoopy Theatre used to be.

And you can’t forget to pick up some of the very cool-looking new Ghost Town Alive! apparel before wrapping up your day at Knott’s.

Ghost Town Alive! and Knott’s Summer Nights are both included with theme-park admission and run on select dates between now and the beginning of September at Knott’s Berry Farm in Buena Park, California. For additional details and to purchase advance tickets, be sure to visit Knott’s official website.