Description:
The trials and tribulations of running a funfair company ably assisted by my 2 partners, Laurel and Hardy
Contents:
Mulled Wine Carts For Hire
One of our most popular lines is our range of Victorian style catering carts. To date we have a range of carts with candy floss, popcorn, hot dogs, espress coffee, tea and hot chocolate, crepes and French pancakes available. We have just expanded this range with the addition of roast chestnuts and mulled wind. In fairness we have been supplying chestnut carts for a couple of year, but we have just adapted our range of flexible carts to offer chestnuts rather than having to bring a specialised cart in for the event. This is paying dividends already with us in negotiation with a major shopping centre to provide them with chestnut carts for a range of events. The mulled wine cart is a new venture, added with the intention of capturing some more of the Christmas party market by offering something a little more upmarket. Details of our mulled wine carts can be found here.....
We will shortly have an announcement to make with regards to some new Christmas fairs we have been asked to provide attractions to. One of these will be a major event, with the others being on a slightly smaller scale, but still an important part of our ongoing strategy to provide quality funfairs in a number of city centre venues.
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Radio Ga Ga
At the moment we are at the great Nottingham Goose Fair, supposedly one of this countries premier fairground events. In truth over the last few years it has become a shadow of its former self, with many of the smaller 'private' funfairs up and down the country providing a much better return on investment. Whilst stood at the front of our helter skelter I was approached by a young lady from Nottingham radio asking if I would be prepared to be interviewed live by Radio Nottingham. "That's not a problem!", I replied, and the interviewer (sadly not the aforementioned young lady), and I ascended the helter skelter to take advantage of the increased signal strength received from being 40 ft in the air.
The interview opened with the statement that a lot of local people feel the prices charged on the rides at Nottingham are expensive. Now they have a valid point here, however I explained that this particular fair is probably the most expensive in the country for an operator to attend. It's not just the rental for the space, but the charge for having a car present at the fair, plus towing vehicles, living accomodation etc. I think our next most expensive event costs us something like 20 percent of what Nottingham levy. The interviewer was quite reasonable with his questions and I think I put our point of view across fairly well. I am one of those people who believe that we are moving away from our roots with the prices we are charging, but at places like Nottingham we have very litle room to cut things without the council helping us out by lowering some of our expenses.
I am now just about to set off back to Nottingham to dismantle the helter skelter, its pouring it down with rain, is freezing cold and generally all round miserable. At times like this I wish Arthur wasn't afraid of heights and I could send him.
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Twenty Four Hour Petrol
We attended a corporate event recently in Glasgow. With other events we had on the same day it was down to me, my other half and Lisa, the famous Arthur's wife, to run everything.
The event went well and we had a good time. On the way home, one of the girls suddenly noticed the low fuel warning light was on, (in actual fact it had been on for about 10 miles but I was hoping they wouldn't notice), anyway I told them it would be alright and we would make it to Washington services. They insisted we stopped before then, only unfortunately the A69 road has a distinct lack of garages, and the little towns bordering the road tend to be pretty much closed at 2 in the morning.
As the miles rolled by and the girls got more nervous, I cheerily told them that we were only about 30 miles away from were Arthur was stationed and he would be able to bring fuel out if need be. Lisa responded by sending the following text to Arthur;
"Captain numb nuts hasn't fuelled up, the van is ready for conking, he thinks you are the AA" She has a ripe turn of phrase that girl, personally I think she should ask the finishing school for a refund, but there you go!
Anyway Arthur replied that we would be ok, there was a 24hr garage at the Tesco store in Hexham. As we were passing Hexham at the time we detoured off, and eventually found the Tesco store, which was indeed open 24hrs, nice one Arthur. Unfortunately the Tesco seemed to lack something, a fuel pump, stupid boy (Arthur). So after wasting about 6 miles of our precious fuel we headed back up the open road.
Our next attempt at fuelling up was courtesy of Lisa. "There's 24hr fuel pumps at the Metro centre branch of Asda", so we duly detoured off yet again. This time the store did have a fuel pump, unfortunately they had run out of diesel that afternoon! so we headed back towards the A1, with even me getting worried about our chances this time. As luck would have it turning the corner we came across a 24hr garage, that was actually there, actually open and actually had diesel in stock, so we got away with it by the skin of our teeth.
Funny thing is, I have been in similar situations before, I haven't actually ever run out, (well I once did in a large 8 wheeled vehicle, but it was at the top of a hill, and I managed to freewheel down the hill, along the road and into a garage, stopping at the actual pump), I remember when I was still living at home and I could judge my Dads cars to within about 300 yards of running out of fuel. One particular morning I was laid underneath a lorry undertaking some minor repairs, when my Dad and my sister came marching out the front door, into a car and off for a driving lesson. About 40 minutes later I heard my dads footsteps, but heard no car! Then came a rather angry sounding shout, "Where's Jason the little ^£%^"*("(£^. Turns out my old man had run out of fuel about 3 miles up the road and had to walk back to get his other car and some money for fuel. I decided that discretion was the better part of valour and stayed where I was
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Grace, Pace and Space
We have a number of different vehicles we use depending on the requirements of each particular job. We own and operate our own heavy goods vehicles for the larger events, or events requiring heavy equipment to be transported. For mid range jobs we have an operating arrangement with a local van hire company who provide a wide range of vans tailored to our precise requirements. The smallest of our requirements, usually a single candy floss cart or side stall is now covered by our latest toy, a compact Jaguar estate pictured below. With the addition of a roof rack, and a fuel efficient diesel engine this allows us to attend some of the far flung places we travel to in a degree of comfort.
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Its Raining
“It always rains on tents. Rainstorms will travel thousands of miles, against prevailing winds for the opportunity to rain on a tent.”
Dave Barry
The above quote by the American humourist, Dave Berry should perhaps have the word tent replaced with fairground. Last season saw a large section of the year washed out, and we all thought that lightning couldn't strike twice, but it has. The amount of events that have been called off for this weekend is stagerring. We have had 3 cancelled for tomorrow. Luckily 2 of them are being rearranged and the third we are in negotiations to agree a suitable cancellation fee. Normally this isn't something we demand, but cancelling an event with less than 48 hours notice isn't on, especially when we have sub contracted a large amount of additional equipment in.
Losing another large tranch of the season is going to hurt a lot of operators, luckily with us switching to mainly corporate events we are to some degree insulated from this. If the country slides into the predicted recession, then I think there will be a sharp contraction in the amount of attractions operating in the UK.
Corporate Funfair Hire
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West End Girls
We have just added a new soft scoop ice cream cart to our portfolio (pictured below). This was in operation over the weekend at Aldermaston for a wedding event. Dunnita travelled down there with the cart as I had kit in operation during the day for a Coca Cola event, and on the evening at another of our Galaxy radio bookings. Everything went smoothly with Dunnita ringing up at one point to report that the bride was an actress currently starring in the West End production of Joseph, and that a number of television celebrities were in attendance at the wedding.
The cart carries and dispenses upto 12 different flavour of soft scoop ice cream that we have sourced from a small independant Yorkshire producer. At the wedding it went down a treat, with many guests coming back for seconds and thirds due to the taste.
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National Memorial Arboretum
The most persistent sound which reverberates through men's history is the beating of war drums. ~Arthur Koestler, Janus: A Summing Up
Like people from all other walks of life, some travelling showmen made the supreme sacrifice during the two world war conflicts of the last century. On 18th August 2008, a memorial to the fallen showmen was unveiled at the National Memorial Arboretum near Lichfield in Staffordshire. A large contingent of old soldiers made the trek to the Arboretum, along with a number of present day Showmen's Guild Official to take part in a moving memorial service.
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Portable Boating Lake
We are in the process of broadening our horizons and branching out into full event management. In truth we are pretty much acting as an event management company already with many of our clients requesting various non funfair related items. In readiness for the launch of our new company, we have been adding numerous items to our portfolio. Some we have acquired ourselves, others in reciprocal deals with 3rd parties. Anyway one of the first of these items is a totally portable mini boating lake, designed for kids it enables us to supply a lake ranging from 20ft by 20ft upto 25ft by 40ft. This is ideal for inside shopping centers, large hotels etc. The page from our new brochure is reproduced below. Ignore the image of the Great White Shark, that's in reference to the name of our upcoming company and will be revealed in due course.
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DOH
I recently found myself with nothing to do one evening. Well that's not strictly true, I am still putting the finishing touches to the launch of a new company, and I always have some internet promotions work I can be carrying out, but for once I had nothing urgent screaming at me to be done. The upshot was that my wife, daughter and I jumped in the car and nipped out to the xscape centre at Castleford for a couple of games of 10 pin bowling.
Midway through the second game I managed to drop the ball and bowl it backwards, away from the pins. A bit like Arthur after a heavy drinking session really. Anyway it reminded me of years earlier when my (at that time) wife to be and I went out bowling. At the lane adjacent to ours was a competitive match between two teams. As the last ball of their competition was about to be bowled, I slipped and somehow managed to throw my ball into their lane. It rolled ever so slowly down the lane and clipped a single pin, promptly losing the match for the home team!
One thing that surprised me was how quiet the Xscape centre was, in the past we have had to book a lane and then come back anything upto an hour later. This time not only did we start to play immediately, but many of the lanes were empty. Similarly the bars and restaurants around the place were only about a quarter full. It was on a weekend and during the school holidays so I expected the place to be heaving.
Saturday saw me at the second of our Galaxy radio events. This time in the Quest nightclub in Wakefield. I finished at 1 am but couldn't get our cart out until after 3 due to fact that the place was absolutely packed. We took one of our larger carts with the twisted brass poles at each corner, which resulted in one young lady attempting to pole dance. Unfortunately this unbalanced the cart and I had to stop her.
Victorian Side Stalls For Hire Nationwide
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Quickmark
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Mobile Blog
We have just taken advantage of a new service that turns our blog into a formatted version suitable for viewing on the new generation of mobile phones. If you point your phones browser to Funfairgames Mobile Blog it will load up a miniaturised version of this blog, complete with a commenting system allowing you to read about Arthurs adventures anywhere you may be.
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Dick Turpin Wore A Mask
We recently picked up a block booking for one of our candy floss carts from a Yorkshire radio station, Galaxy FM. The first of these events took place in the Trilogy nightclub in Doncaster on Saturday evening. We transported a cart through Saturday afternoon, parked in a pay to park car park outside of the club and set the candy floss cart up ready for that evening. We arrived back at the club about nine thirty and parked in the same spot we had occupied during the afternoon. About twenty minutes later I came down for something out of the car only to find it gone. Now I have spoke to people who have had cars stolen before, and they talked of the confusion at not seeing the car where they left it. I experienced it firsthand as I walked about the car park looking for my car and knowing full well it was gone from where I had parked it. After I came back into the club the DJ informed me that it would have been towed away as after 6pm that particular car park reverts to private land.
I looked about and managed to find a small warning sign, which was in complete darkness and phoned the number only to receive a recorded message telling me that I could not have my car released until the next day. When I went back the next day I was hit with a charge of £260. This broke down as follows, £90 for clamping, £110 for towing away (which must have been performed virtually simultaneously), £30 storage as it was impounded before midnight and £30 storage as they still had it after midnight (even though there wasn't any choice in the matter as they don't release cars until the following day, presumably to drive up the storage charge.) So that worked out at just about the most expensive parking ticket I have ever had. I could have just about stomached the clamping fee, or the tow away fee, but I think they are coming it a bit to hit someone with both. Its a bit like being caught doing 50 in a 30 zone and being fined for doing 40 mph and also fined for doing 50.
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