a fairground life

The last of the light ups for us Alloa. I have been providing the fair here for the last 10 years and apart from the first year in 2000, I never presented any of my own equipment. This year was different though as the Fair was to be moved from the origional car park to a new location just across the road. I must admit, at first I did not fancy the new location as it was further away from the High St and the fair was partly hidden from view by a neighbouring building, but on the night the people did turn out to support the towns event. The organisers realised that the new location for the light up stage show needed some extra effort and they really pulled out the stops. They had extra x-mas lights installed leading down to the venue, a new Christmas tree put up and lights fitted to it, then they had a world record attempt organised for the most people dancing a reel. To top all that off, there was a charity fair in the aforementioned building and plenty of advertisement to let the public know. So we set off from Glasgow on a dry , cold and dark Saturday morning at 6am. It was very foggy with poor visabillity but by the time we arrived in Alloa at little before 8am the fog had lifted a bit. The new location was almost clear of cars, in fact a sole van was parked and as mentioned before in this blog it was parked in the obligatory way. We juggled the position of the ride to compensate then started to build up. A short while later the rest of the tenants arrived, as it was a new site I had prepared a plan before hand but this was quickly modified for the better. As in previous years we all headed over to TESCO for our breakfast before opening. The parked van was moved by the council just before we opened at 11am. The first few hours were slow but just about 3:30pm the crowds started to form for the switch on an hour later. The crowds dwindled to see the light up and then headed back over to the fair again just before 5pm. A few minutes later the DZ had the breakdown. The RCCB had tripped the power off during a ride cycle, "r" went and put it on again and as the ride was stopped, I pressed the manual lower to bring down the carriage for a restart. Alas the ride only lower about 30cm when it stopped again. I thought it was jammed and went out for a closer inspection. I could see that the ride had jammed on a fouled rope. All I needed to do was raise the carriage 1-2 inches to clear it but the design of the ride is such that it can only be started when the carriage is at the bottom position and it was 12ft above this! So we followed procedure and had the fire brigade remove the passengers. At 6:30pm the last one was removed by ladder. It only took "r" a minute to clear the jam by attaching a ratchet strap to the tower and carriage. He ratcheted up the strap and the empty carriage raised the inch or so and he cleared the fowled rope. Literally 2 minutes and the ride carriage was lowered down. But you could'nt do that with the public sitting onboard. At 8pm we were heading back to Glasgow. The next morning we were supposed to do the light up at Cambuslang. We arrived on site at 7am to look at the position for the DZ, it was too tight for the fire passage and the alternative was on too great a slope, so we took the ride back to the mall. There we erected the ride for 10am then replaced the fowled rope with a spare. All ready for noon we tried the ride but it would not go, for 5 hours "r" and I tried everything to get it to go. Eventually, being frozen to the bone, tired and de-moralised we left it for the next day, lucky we didn't go to Cambuslang. Monday morning and I sent emails to the manufacturer in Italy and called an electrician. I also phoned "IS" who used to have a similar ride before he sold it. "r" and I stopped at Maplins to get some components, we tested every diode, resistor, contactor , connection. We read the schematic, traced voltages and even looked up the CPU manual on the internet. The ride still would not go, it simply lifted about 2m from the floor then stopped and blew a 2A fuse. It was about 2pm now and I felt sure that we had fried the CPU when the RCCB trip had went at Alloa. Then in a last ditch desperation thought, I had an idea! The only thing that was out of the ordinary for (apart from the rope foul up) the ride was all the foot traffic across the floor of the ride the night of the breakdown. Normally the carriage is positioned here and prevents foot traffic, so I said to "r" to lift the tread-plate sheeting. Hallelujah!!! a tiny comms wire was rubbed bear and touching on the flooring. As soon as "r" touched it the ride came to life. I called the electrician and "IS" to inform them. As for Italy it was two days later before they contacted me. At that I headed home to pick up Mrs Showman and headed down south for a showmen's function. I don't know if she was happier cos the ride was re paired or because she was getting to go to the function.