When it comes to running a hot spot for agri-tourism, success doesn’t just happen overnight. For John and Meghan Snyder, owners of Snyder’s Family Farm, and it’s alter ego, Fear Farm, building the reputation as a must-have fall experience has been two decades in the making.
John first bought the property, located near Bright, Ontario, 23 years ago and since then, himself and his wife, Meghan, have worked 365 days a year to completely transform the property.
“John was 24-years-old when he bought what was then known as Kim-Glo Farms, it was 120 acres and back then it was a very small pumpkin patch,” said Meghan. “John’s family is originally from the St. Agatha area and I’m originally from Toronto but I had been going to the University of Waterloo when I met him and so we’ve been working on the farm together now for about 21 years now.”
She said that while they’re now one location with two different identities, things were much different when they first started out.
“When Fear Farm was small, it was actually called Night Terrors, and it was really just a haunted barn and a parking lot,” reminisced Meghan. “I would basically stand there with a pouch and people would pay seven-dollars from their car and then I’d give them a raffle ticket from the dollar store, and they would pull in and hand it into a booth.”
Meghan said that while they never did food production, at one point in time they used greenhouses to supplement the spring months.
“Early on we did do greenhouses but it was very scary and we made very little money. We used to do these beautiful custom baskets for the Stratford Festival as well as for retail and a lot of love went into that, but when we were starting to do our fall events, we decided we couldn’t do both because they didn’t compliment each other,” she said. “When we needed to be growing our fall event, we should have been growing the greenhouse things and then when we needed to be growing the greenhouse, we should have been doing fall and so one year, we decided to make the scary move out of the greenhouse work.”
She said that as their farm’s reputation started to grow and they put all of their time into the fall attraction, they eventually decided to change the business’ name in 2007.
“We decided ‘let’s separate the identities and make it really clear,’ and so in the daytime, it’s now Snyder’s Family Farm, and at night time it’s Fear Farm,” said Meghan. “We have two identities and two websites, so Snyder’s Family Farm is really intended for families and all things fall and fun, and then night time is unapologetically terrifying and we don’t feel bad about making it as scary as humanly possible.”
Throughout the months of September and October, Snyder’s Family Farm boasts 20 family fun activities with wagon rides, live entertainment, puppet shows and welcoming staff, while Fear Farm offers seven frightening outdoor haunted attractions with professional stunt actors and live horses out in the field for the infamous haunted hayride. Between the two events, Meghan said the farm can easily bring up to 60,000 visitors throughout the season.
She said that everything they have done and added throughout the years has come down to intentional planning.
“After we stopped doing the greenhouses, it became very easy to focus all our energy to grow this farm, not only because we love it, but so we could pay the mortgage as well. Everything you see on this property, the way it’s laid out for daytime and nighttime, all of those additions have been done intentionally,” said Meghan. “We eat, breathe and sleep for this season and so for the last 20-plus years, everything we’ve done has gone into building and planning this farm out. We go to trade shows in the US, we’re on various boards and it’s really a lifestyle choice and that’s why it’s become what it has.”
While Meghan often has her hands in the day-to-day business operation of the farm, she said it’s John who brings their dreams off of paper and into reality.
“Even though he’s not a landscape architect or anything like that, John is really the designer of the farm and that’s just who he is. We always say that he builds it and I run it,” laughed Meghan. “While I always look forward to those two fall months, as the builder and designer, John really looks forward to the winter and planning the next big project. We know many haunted houses throughout Canada and in the US, and there’s not a better designer than John. He may have never pursued post-education but it’s just amazing what he can do as a self-taught engineer and artist.”
Meghan said that while the farm’s growth has been driven by the couple’s vision, they couldn’t pull any of it off without their dedicated employees.
“This all started out very, very small with probably 25 of us running the whole thing and now, we have over 250 seasonal employees and four full-time employees who help make this work. Our employees are really the core of what makes us who we are and they’re all just incredibly passionate about what we do here,” said Meghan. “I think John, myself and the management team, we just spend a lot of time making this a fun job, you know? Whether that’s telling jokes on the radio, giving the staff pumpkins on Thanksgiving weekend, or setting up a really great staff locker room for them, that’s all done because we want them to want to come here and they do, they all choose to work and be here on the weekends.”
She said that one of her favourite things about her job is helping employees start to perfect the art of customer service.
“When we pull off those super busy days or those tough days as a team, you can feel the energy around the farm and if I can inspire them to do something, and if they can inspire me to do better, then that’s what it’s all about. When the guests have a great time, there’s nothing quite like that feeling,” said Meghan. “We’re all about real, old-school customer service around here and so when they can make someone’s day, and you get to see them do that, there’s something so cool about that. …I think for a lot of them, this is a great leap into the working world and if this happens to be their first job, then we take their training extra seriously because we want to set them off on the right foot.”
It’s not all just pumpkins and hayrides that the farm is known for, with five food and drink spots, the gift barn and bakery, the Snyder’s team also offers its Christmas on the Farm experience.
“When we first started doing Christmas when our kids were little, we went to every single Christmas farm in Ontario and really decided that we wanted to do something that wasn’t just U-CUT and wasn’t just an experience but instead, as rural-tourism as we could get,” said Meghan. “After we close for the fall, our big pumpkin here at the entrance leaves and we put our 30 foot Christmas tree up, and we turn the gift barn into a Christmas bonanza. We have 30,000 trees planted on the farm for our U-Cut and we have visits with Santa Claus, but we’ll also have our Sugar Plum Patio and pre-bookings available for our 28 campfire sites and that all runs from the end of November 23 to December 22.”
She said while they’ll always strive to add more to their fall events, she’s looking forward to continuing to improve the farm as a whole.
“We have great infrastructure and great customer service, and I think we could be a great option to be the type of market where other farms could sell their products here,” said Meghan. “I would also love to be able to keep our team here year round for Christmas as well. I think with that holiday season, also comes growing that reputation of being the place to get your family’s Christmas tree; John’s the grower there so they’re gorgeous trees. It’s a real spring endeavor, and he just puts so much into them so they’re not junky trees at all and they last for a very long time. I think growing that reputation and just continuing to put our all into the farm for 20 years to come would be awesome.”
Kimberly De Jong’s reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative.The funding allows her to report rural and agricultural stories from Blandford-Blenheim and Brant County. Reach her at kimberly.dejong@brantbeacon.ca.
