a fairground life(clackmannanshire 1st night)

the weather was lovely all day. we spent a few hours painting the center boom of the skydiver ride. then fitted strobe lighting to the dropzone. tonight was the first night at this fair and the first chance we have had to try the new sodium lighting. I was well pleased with the lighting effect and it's covereage around the ride. however this didnt help the earnings as the ride plot has turned out to be hidden behind some center plots. the faie is very tight at this part and the people are in a hurry to push past to get to a wider part of the fair. to be honest all the rides suffered from slower business tonight. its not a good sign.
apart from that everything went well mechanically. more painting tomorrow.

a fairground life(clackmannanshire2)

we set up the other ride today and the show. the fair here is full and there are many new attraction making a first time appearance in this area. this is due to a new lessee runnig the fair and he has opened the gate to many new comers. hopefully the extra large rides will attract more customers and this will offset the drop in earnings resulting from more rides being present at the fair. its a grass park we are on and the sunshine from the previous three weeks has let us get on and set without cutting up the park and making ruts. all we need now is it to stay dry until we get off again. will spend some time on painting tomorrow and a few other odd jobs around the place.

a fairground life(clackmannanshire)

We finished in Glasgow at 6pm on Sunday. The three weeks have passed quickly and the weather was superb almost to the last. My father in law “m” pulled the show down, “r” and our casual labourer done the skydiver and water lasers, I did the maimi and helped “m” with the show. We started on the dropzone around 10pm. Just as we were lowering the pole the heavens opened and we got a heavy downpour for 10 minutes. I left shortly after to take one load into Clackmannanshire while "r" finished off the dropzone. I got there just before midnight and got the ride set onto its position. Back to Glasgow and picked the Miami up and took it to the yard. It was too late at 2am to bring it in so we left it on the street.
Up at 8am and began juggling vehicles to get the miami in, then back to get the dropzone and into Clackmannan again. The rain was light but consistent all day. We set the dropzone and began to set up just before 1pm. Before we could raise the pole we had to fit two sodium lights as the halogens weren’t lasting. I also took this opportunity to fix a light channel that was in op. What a stupid idea, the light box in the top of the pole! If you blew a fuse you have three options 1-ignore it, 2-climb up the pole taking your life in your hands or 3- pull the ride down. My personal preference is option1, however you can’t get away with that for long, especially with my wife. Why didn’t they fit the box at the bottom and run the wires up????? Any how by the time we got finished it was 9pm. We will build the skydiver up tomorrow.

a fairground life(kirkcaldy links market)

i went to the links market for a look today, the fair is impressive even to a proffesional like myself. over 40 large rides and countless other juveniles and games. the giant wheel and bomber2 are visible from a mile outside the town. no wonder the average person is bewildered as to how this small 'town' can overwhelm an area, assemble and then disappear again in only eight days. i wonder what the footfall is over the period of the fair? if you want atmosphere this is the place to be this week.

a fairground life

It was an absolute scorcher today. The weather has been lovely for two weeks now all through the holidays. That said business was very poor today for a Saturday. I guess that people head out of the cities for the coast on days like this. Us showmen always have an excuse for poor a turn out. Its too cold, its too hot, its the rain, its the footy on the telly, its too near christmas, they are all away on holiday, its the budget, its fuel costs, its the lottery.... the list is endless.
As my uncle Jim says "when we run out of excuses, this game is f****d"
One of his other sayings is "if we get nothing, it's always something" he is a character to say the least.

Tomorrow the flagship funfair in Scotland will begin with the arrival of showmen from all over the UK. The fair is the Kircaldy Links Market. Set along 7/10ths of a mile on the towns prominade. Like all things it used to be bigger, but over the years space has been lost including my ride plot, which is now occupied by a wall since 1995. This fair is over 700 years old! Its well worth a visit.(before it shrinks anymore)

a fairground life(another break down)

it was the skydivers turn today. the ride stopped in mid flight. there was only two people on so we moved their car to the bottom and let them off. the main motor had stopped. i noticed that there was no power to the control booth but power to the lighting system. i concluded right away that we had lost a phase. i opened up the main plug but that was all ok. after about 15 minutes we had traced the fault to the main isolator switch. luckily i had a spare. we changed this and the ride worked fine for the rest of the night. to anyone reading this blog it would seem that all my equipment is unreliable, i can assure you this is not generaly the case, honest!. it just thawing out problems after the winter period......i hope!

a fairground life(paper work)

I have just spent another two hours of paperwork in preperation of a funfair in July. I wonder if the general public knows how much preperation and logistics go into organising a funfair. Large or small they all need an organiser, a location, permission from the land owner, a public entertainment license from the local authority and in some cases even planning permission!
The licensing application costs from £35-£600 depending on area and takes at least 28 days to process (lisence only required in Scotland ). If the license is refused for any reason there is no refund of the fee. The organiser of the fair has to collect a safety doc, electrical test, public liability cert for every piece of equipment on the fair and provide this with a site plan, risk assessment, emergency plan, fire risk assessment for the fair. Now multiply this by around thirty seperate fairs a year. That's a lot of paper work and a lot of hours filling in forms and writing risk assessments for a brief event.

a fairground life(miami repaired again)

The last two days have been spent on the miami ride again. This ride uses a high pressure hydraulic system to give the ride high speed motion with almost instant changes in direction. This creates high pressures in the system (upto 500 bar for an instant, about 7000 psi). One of the motor hoses burst the other day and oil sprayed out into the back of the ride. We did have a spare hose and it only took 20mins to change over, but then it took us 3 hrs to clean up 75liters of oil. I was quite suprised it was only 75 liters because it looked like 200lts when I first saw it.

a fairground life

Well nothing much to report this week. The weather has held out dry over the Easter period and business has been fair. The vehicles have been sitting for a fortnight now and when I was having a quick look around I noticed the Miami lorry tyre has went down again (the same one that went flat from Edinburgh). Still havent got the water lasers decals finished yet, but I understand that they are ready for uplift.

a fairground life

All the rides are working ok and since we aren't moving or setting up again this week, there isn't much to talk about. There is still plenty of minor jobs to keep me busy in the mornings. We are operating from 12noon daily over the easter holidays, so to get any jobs done means getting an early start. Painting is definately out as you need at least 24hrs to be certain it dry and hard. I've had bad experiences before with people getting paint flakes on their hands after touching surfaces painted earlier in the day. Once i had to close a funhouse because the paint on the floor never dried after two days. I ended up having to scrape it all off and start again. What a mess that was!!!!

a fairground life(miami repaired)

finaly I have fixed the miami ride. After having out the hydraulic specialist for a morning and ordering new parts for the pump, it turned out to be an electrical fault. The drive is controlled by a 12v dc battery. This battery is continually charged from a charger. Output should be 13-14v dc. It was only 11v, this loss of 2v prevented the ride reaching full speed. You know what they say "all's well that end's well!"
After all that it was a lovely sunny day and business was crap!