Traveling carnival
A traveling carnival, usually simply called a carnival, travelling funfair or travelling show, is an amusement show that may be made up of amusement rides, food vendors, merchandise vendors, games of chance and skill, thrill acts, and animal acts. A traveling carnival is not set up at a permanent location, like an amusement park, but is moved from place to place. Its roots are similar to the 19th century circus with both being fitted-up in open fields near or in town and moving to a new location after a period of time. In fact, many carnivals have circuses while others have a clown aesthetic in their decor. Unlike traditional Carnival celebrations, the North American traveling carnival is not tied to a religious observance.
History
In 1893, the Chicago's World's Columbian Exposition was the catalyst for the development of the modern traveling carnival. The Chicago World's Fair had an area that included rides, games of chance, freak shows, and burlesque. After the Chicago World's Fair, traveling carnival companies began touring the United States. Due to the type of acts featured along with sometimes using dishonest business practices, the traveling carnivals were often looked down upon.Modern traveling carnivals usually make contracts with local governments in order to play both state and county fairs, as well as smaller venues.
Image:Terminator and Paratrooper, night.jpg|thumb|Many thrill rides, such as the paratrooper and the Matterhorn, include spinning people at high speed coupled with other accelerations.
Originally, a fair would also have had a significant number of market stalls; today this is rare and most sidestalls only offer food or games. The first fairground rides began to appear in the 18th century. These were small, made of wood and propelled by gangs of boys. In the 19th century, before the development of mechanical attractions, sideshows were the mainstay of most funfairs. Typical shows included menageries of wild animals, freak shows, wax works, boxing/wrestling challenges, and theatrical shows. In 1868, Frederick Savage, an agricultural engineer from King's Lynn, devised a method of driving rides by steam. His invention, a steam engine mounted in the center of the ride, transformed the fairground industry in England and around the world. The preeminent carousel maker in the 19th century, his fairground machinery was exported globally.
United States
Through most of the 19th century, rural North America enjoyed the entertainment of traveling shows. These shows could include a circus, vaudeville show, burlesque show, or a magic lantern show. It is believed that the 1893 Chicago World's Fair was the catalyst that brought about the modern traveling carnival. At the Chicago World's Fair was an avenue at the edge of the grounds called the Midway Plaisance. This avenue of the fair had games of chance, freak shows, wild west shows and burlesque shows. It also featured the original Ferris Wheel, constructed by George Washington Gale Ferris Jr. Following the Chicago World's Fair, the term "midway" was adopted from the Midway Plaisance to denote the area at county and state fairs where sideshow entertainment was located.Otto Schmitt, a showman at the world's fair, formed Chicago Midway Plaisance Amusement Company. The company featured thirteen acts, including some from the World's Fair, and began a tour of the northeast US. His company closed due to poor business practices before completing its first tour. Some members of his company formed successful traveling carnivals after Otto Schmitt's company closed.
The appeal of this new type of entertainment was embraced. In 1902, there were seventeen traveling carnivals in the US. The number grew to 46 in 1905; by 1937 there was an estimated 300 carnivals touring the country.
Operations
Worldwide there are many different traveling carnival companies. Most carnivals are not made up of just one operator of rides, food or games. Many of these venues are operated by independent owners who contract with the carnival. These independent owners are contracted to pay the carnival operator a percentage of what their ride or stand grosses in sales. It is common for the independent owners within a traveling carnival to be related, or have intertwined family histories.Many carnival operators are so big that they have carnival "units" or divisions. Each of these units may consist of six or more major rides. By having these units, a carnival operator can have a carnival operating in many different areas during the same week.
Rides and stands are generally transported by truck. The rides generally have wheels mounted on the base and the rest of the ride is then dismantled and folded up to allow for over-the-road transport. Food stands are usually tow-behind trailers, although there are still some booths that require complete take down and packing. Some large carnival operators transport their equipment from one location to another by rail.
A traveling carnival operator may schedule their carnival for certain seasons. They will have their carnivals in warm climate southern areas and then move into northern regions during the warmer months.
Admission is often charged for county or state fairs, but is usually free at most carnivals. Tickets or all-day passes are usually sold for rides. When a carnival is "playing" a fair, exhibits or displays may charge their own entry fee, as well as some entertainment acts.
Food
There are food stands at carnivals which serve a variety of food and beverages. They offer snack items like cotton candy, popcorn, ice cream, fried dough, funnel cake, candy, or caramel apples and french fries. Meal items may include pizza, hamburgers, hot dogs, and chicken. Beverages may include soda, coffee, tea, and lemonade. Local and regional specialties, along with ethnic foods such as empanadas and tacos, are often available. At autumn and winter carnivals, drinks like hot cider and hot chocolate may be available.Junk food items like deep fried candy bars, the deep-fried Twinkie, chocolate hot dogs, Dippin' Dots ice cream, the blooming onion, and "deep-fried butter on-a-stick" are some of the delicacies that can be found at carnival food stands.
Games
At many traveling carnivals, there are games of chance and skill. Games like the "Crossbow Shoot" game or the "Balloon and Darts" game will test an individual's target shooting ability. Other games, such as the "Water gun" game, will pit a group of individuals against each other to win the game. Chance is involved in games like the "Duck Pond" game or the "Pingpong Ball" and "Fishbowl" games. Most games offer a small prize to the winner. Prizes may be stuffed animals, toys, posters, etc. Continued play is encouraged as multiple small prizes may traded in for a larger prize. Some more difficult games, including the "Baseball and Basket" or "Stand the Bottle" game, may offer a large prize to any winner.While the majority of game operators run honest games, some people are wary of carnival games. This may be because carnival games in the past gained a reputation for being dishonest. The term "mark" originated with the carnival.
When dishonest carnival game operators found someone whom they could entice to keep playing their "rigged" game, they would then "mark" the player by patting their back with a hand that had chalk on it. Other game operators would then look for these chalk marks and entice the individual to also play their rigged game. This is not common practice anymore, although there still are a few confidence men in the carnival business.
Learning about how carnival games work can help an individual from being cheated.
Side stalls and games
Most stalls feature games of skill or strength. The most traditional example being the coconut shy in which players throw balls at coconuts balanced on posts, winning the coconut if they manage to dislodge it.Other side stalls range from the trivially easy, such as hooking rubber ducks from a water trough in which nearly every player is expected to win a prize, to the deceptively challenging, which includes games which utilize optical illusions or physical relationships that are difficult to judge. Highly profitable games include:
- ring toss, in which the customer must throw a ring around a target, often a peg or bottle. However, it is either highly difficult to throw the ring in the proper angle to get it to land around the target without bouncing out of place, or the ring is physically too small to properly fit around the target.
- ball-in-the-basket games in which the basket is presented at an angle almost certain to bounce the ball out.
- basketball-shooting games in which the basket is ovoid in shape and the basketball cannot fit inside the rim under any circumstances, but takes advantage of the oval shape an individual expects to see when directly confronted by a circle presented at an angle nearly parallel with the ground. Sometimes the basketballs are also inflated to their full capacity, thus allowing the ball to bounce out of the hoop more easily.
- archery, air rifles, and paint ball guns with sometimes misaligned sights, with targets ranging from bullseyes to playing cards.
- Hit-The-Bell, high striker device to test prowess, originally fabricated from various hardware.
- milk bottle games where the customer must knock over a stack of metal milk bottles with a thrown ball. These games are often rigged by weighing down the bottles to be much more difficult to dislodge than they look, using throwing balls that are too light and soft to hit with much force, or both.
- dart games where the player must throw darts at a wall of balloons to pop them. The balloons are often not inflated fully and the darts may be blunted, making it more difficult to pop the balloons with them.
- shooting gallery games where the player must use a pellet gun to shoot out a symbol, such as a star, out of a piece of paper with a limit of time or pellets. Because the paper grows increasingly pliable as it is repeatedly punctured, the pellets will more likely bend the paper out of the way rather than penetrate it.
Typical prizes change to reflect popular tastes. A traditional fairground prize used to be a goldfish in a small plastic bag, but these have fallen out of favor, partly because goldfish are no longer seen as exotic, but also because of animal welfare concerns. Many stalls offer cuddly toys as prizes.