So far, sideshow is surviving the odds

Posted by CarnivalMidways.Com on September 12, 2009
Posted in: News. Tagged: , , .

By Amy Bickel – The Hutchinson News

Operator calls it the last traveling one in the nation as venue’s past its heyday.

Pete “Poobah” Terhurne eats fire outside of the “World of Wonders” sideshow at the Kansas State Fair on Friday afternoon.

Pete “Poobah” Terhurne eats fire outside of the “World of Wonders” sideshow at the Kansas State Fair on Friday afternoon.

When Ward Hall ran away from his family’s Nebraska home to join the circus as a flame eater at the age of 15, his father told him he’d be back in just two weeks.

But that was nearly 65 years ago, the 79-year-old Hall says with a smile as he stood outside his “World of Wonders” sideshow. He’s known nothing but this nomadic life since 1946, and he couldn’t imagine doing anything else.

Yet, he says with a sense of dismay, the American sideshow isn’t what it used to be.

What once was a mainstay at fairs across the nation has slowly faded off the map, he said. He opened his own sideshow in 1951. Now he’s the only one left.

“There’s a permanent one on Coney Island,” Hall said before his 2 p.m. show at the Kansas State Fair. “But we’re the last traveling sideshow in America.”

One by one, they went out of business as employees quit, retired and died, he said.

At one time, when there were more than 100 sideshows in the country, fairgoers would goggle at what some called “freaks.” Hall said it’s not necessarily a more politically correct society that has run the sideshows out of business. He blames a fast-paced life that includes television.

Yet Hall keeps going. He tried to retire in 2003 to his home in Gibsonton, Fla. – a community that has long been a retirement and winter spot for carnival workers and sideshow performers.

The heat of summer, however, was just too unbearable, he said.

He went back on the road.

The group does 50 shows each year during the fair season, said 28-year-old Marcus Epsilon, who has mastered the skill of putting his arms, tongue and other body parts in traps with ease.

Painful?

“It takes skill,” he said with a smile.

Epsilon is part of a lineup of 12 acts that include a man who swallows swords, a woman who seemingly turns into a snake, a human blockhead and Pete “Poobah” Terhurne, a 3-foot-tall, 79-year-old fire eater who has been at Hall’s side for 55 years.

Moreover, unlike sideshows of the past that featured the fat man, a bearded lady and a lobster boy, these shows are more illusions instead of human or animal oddities.

Hall, however, is hopeful for a good fair. Off the fairgrounds main path, past the carnival rides in the northeast corner of the fairgrounds, his exhibit sits, awaiting anyone who will walk by with a few dollars. They perform every 30 minutes.

When the carnival rides start moving, they’ll open their show about an hour later, he said.

“And when the last drunk staggers out the gate, then we’ll shut down,” Hall said.

[ad#Google Adsense-nottoowide]

The Miller family

Posted by CarnivalMidways.Com on September 10, 2009
Posted in: News. Tagged: , , .

By Edyta B?aszczyk – Daily Egyptian

The Miller family has five generations and more than 100 years of experience in the carnival business.

It all started in 1906 when the great-grandfather, Gene Miller, of current owner Fred Miller, formed Miller Concession based out of Little Rock, Ark. The business started by providing food for fairs across the country. The little business eventually grew when Gene’s son, Burt Miller, began managing carnivals and buying equipment.

The success evolved into creating their own carnival: Miller’s Gala Exposition Show, which started in 1958. From there the named changed to Miller Brothers Spectacular in the 1970’s to Miller Spectacular Shows in 1983.

Now Fred Miller, his son and father Johnny Miller, run the business. Fred Miller does most of the planning. His business travels as far northeast as St. Joseph, Mich., and as far southwest as Albuquerque, N.M.

“It all started years ago with seven food operations,” Fred Miller said. Now he owns 55 rides.

With 41 rides, 40 games and seven food trailers in the Du Quoin State Fair alone, Fred Miller said placement becomes key. Fred Miller said there is only so much space to layout all the equipment so he usually comes to the fairgrounds a week prior to the event, looks at how much space he has, then uses computer generated layouts to place rides, concession stands, games, generators and trailers to maximize space for function. The team of subcontractors, workers and ride engineers set up and test all the machines in about four days.

“We can do it in a day if we have to,” Fred Miller said.

One of the supervisors, Heath Douglas, has been with the Miller family for nearly 15 years. Douglas passes down his knowledge of the games and rides to younger carnival employees such Dierick Gray, age 16 of Du Quoin, who started working at the carnival for a summer job. Gray calls to patrons as they pass through the carnival, reeling them to his game with the prospect of winning a stuffed animal.

With more families staying home and not going out on vacations, Miller said attendance at his fairs have generally increased.

“There’s something for all ages,” he said.

Life on the road is normal for Fred Miller. He said there is new scenery every two weeks and it never gets boring. His day starts around 9 a.m. and ends around 1:30 a.m.
But even with the long hours, Fred Miller said he has one of the best jobs around.

“We are in the business of fun,” he said.

[ad#Google Adsense-nottoowide]

Dedicated crew brings Interior Provincial Exhibition to life

Posted by CarnivalMidways.Com on September 2, 2009
Posted in: News. Tagged: .

Vernon Morning Star

Scenes from the Interior Provincial Exhibition in Armstrong can jump into your mind like a flashbulb popping.

There are people playing midway games, families boarding the ferris wheel and kids eating ice cream cones while an aroma of frying donut batter wafts by.

But most folks attending the fair between today and Sunday won’t consider the hours put in by employees posted in game stalls and workers running all the rides before the fair even begins to make those experiences possible.

On Tuesday, carnival workers were busy putting the final touches on their displays. For many of them, it will be the final festival in a long summer of travelling around the circuit.

For Ron Dalgliesh, who owns several classic games on the midway including Wac-A-Mole, Duck Pond and Balloon Pop, it’s impossible to imagine doing something different.

“It’s all I’ve ever done,” says the 45-year-old. “I can’t compare it to anything else. Every day there’s something new, you think you’ve seen it all.”

Each year, carnival employees pack up trailers and head out on the road. Some will make as many as 30 stops during the summer in places like Dauphin, Estevan, Lloydminster, Vermilion and Armstrong.

The fair season goes from March to September for Dalgliesh but his job doesn’t end when the last trailer is packed. He’s always getting organized over the winter to do it over again. This is his 30th year on the circuit.

As he’s talking a mop-haired teenager ambles up. He’s looking for some work during the IPE.

He says he’s 16 and Dalgliesh sends him to speak with someone about working one of his games.

“Happens all the time,” says Dalgliesh. “I figure I’ve done good in people’s lives. I see them years later all mature and they tell me how much I’ve helped them.”

To set up and run a game stall or ride for a fair that might last four or five days just to take it all down, drive to a new spot and do it all again, takes a lot of elbow grease.

Wilf Duguay, who works at one of Dalgliesh’s games, says it all depends on the cohesiveness of the team of workers.

“If you have a whole crew working, it’s not a problem,” says Duguay, who has worked on and off in the carnival circuit for 13 years. “The heat is a problem. You have to drink lots of water and keep yourself replenished.”

Further down the midway, another team of workers knows what Duguay says is true. They’re assembling the track for the Orient Express, hefting heavy pieces of steel for the ride. As the sun rises higher, a bottle of cold water is as valuable as anything.

“It’s fun but it can bring a sweat,” says Rena Lafleur, 21.

“You drink lots of fluids and try to get everything done before the sun gets hot.”

Lafleur is in her first full summer on the circuit and teams up with Joe Severight and Bill Hallett to get the Orient Express up and running at each fairground. They have the routine down pat.

“Bill and Joe do the track and I pull the pins,” she explains. “When (track sections) are on the trailer, me and Bill pass them to Joe.”

It’s a job that requires people who aren’t afraid to get their hands a little dirty. Lafleur is no exception.

“I don’t care. They don’t get much cleaner than this,” she says, turning her palms up to reveal thick black smudges of grease.

From one ride to the next, it’s the same story but by the time you get there, everyone will be sporting a fresh face, hoping to make the 110th IPE a success.

[ad#Google Adsense-nottoowide]

Behind the scenes at the Nebraska State Fair midway

Posted by CarnivalMidways.Com on August 28, 2009
Posted in: News. Tagged: , .

By DEENA WINTER – Lincoln Journal Star

When your parents own a carnival, you can ask for bigger-than-usual presents.

Like a Sky Wheel – a sort of double Ferris wheel.

Mary Panacek’s son, Charles Jr., wanted one when he was a teenager, so she and her husband bought it. Which worked out well because they owned an amusement ride company and could put it on the midway.

That very Sky Wheel will be spinning passengers and churning tummies when the Nebraska State Fair fires up for the 140th year today.

Mary will survey the scene from her lawn chair perched between two huge tractor trailers that contain the offices of the midway operator, Belle City Amusements.

And Charles Jr. will be running around making sure the carnival operates smoothly.

“He’s the boss,” Mary explains. “I do the PR.”

She’s 84 now, and her husband died years ago, so now mother and son continue the company Charles Sr. started at age 18 after he visited a county fair in Wisconsin and saw the pony rides. His family had ponies, so he started giving pony rides at fairs in the 1930s.

He added more rides, and by 1948 he’d incorporated the company.

Which is why Charles Jr. has lived in a carnival all his life.

On Thursday, his T-shirt was covered in dirt as the midway came to life. Workers were attaching gondolas to the Giant Wheel, washing seats on the Sky Wheel, mopping the floor of the Tilt-A-Whirl and testing lights on the Typhoon.

Every summer, Mary, Charles Jr. and his family leave their homes in Florida and travel the country with a crew of about 60 to about 28 fairs.

They finished the Iowa State Fair on Sunday and headed to Nebraska for the first time. They have more than 100 semi-loads of equipment, but they can set up the whole carnival in a day and a half and take it apart in 10 hours.

Charles Jr. says running a midway is getting tougher, with high diesel prices and increasing insurance, parts and maintenance costs.

Although Mary is hesitant to talk about how expensive the rides are, she lets slip that the “glass house” cost a quarter-million dollars and the Himalaya $750,000.

She is on a one-woman crusade to erase the image of carnies as people with “nasty teeth” and long, dirty hair.

Belle City employees undergo drug testing and background checks; are required to wear uniforms; and are banned from having hair below the collar or facial hair beyond a trimmed mustache.

As if to illustrate her point, a woman in a tie-dyed Sturgis T-shirt and a scraggly-haired man hugging a Big Gulp wandered by, asking to see the boss about a job manning “the kiddie rides.”

Mary pointed them toward her son, but whispered that they’d never get a job there, then asked the Lord to forgive her for saying so.

Every time they set up the midway in a new city, they clean all the equipment and replace burned-out light bulbs.

They analyze which rides are most popular by weighing tickets every night. In Des Moines, the Giant Wheel was the most popular.

This year, Mary was going to sit out the season, but ultimately, she couldn’t resist joining the carnival again.

“It was boring,” the matriarch said. “You just miss it. You miss your friends along the route.”

But she never rides the Scorpion or takes a spin on the Yo Yo.

“I would love to,” she said. “I get motion sickness.”

[ad#Google Adsense-nottoowide]