Something new for the carnival/festival scene?

[Joshwa]

Hi, i was just wondering if anybody had any take on upcoming trends or pastimes that i could mould into a station or similar such thing to present at carnivals and festivals.

I currently attend around 40 or so per year with the family business of inflatable attractions, face painting and built-up childrens rides. As i own none of these moneyburners and am simply being used for labour, i was wondering what i could put together to cut in on the action. Any suggestions?

[SCJeff]

The attractions I always see that get a lot of business are the "sport" games, whether it be football, baseball, or the one I see the most often basketball. I'm sure you've seen the basketball games before, there's a few different games that you can do with it, but whenever I'm a fair or something similar to that the basketball games are the ones most people are at.

I think the baseball one would be the easiest to do. The setup I've seen is to see if the customer can throw a pitch at a certain speed, then have a speedometer wired up to a board showing the speed. If you pitch faster than a certain speed, you get a prize, and have like 3 chances to do it or something along those lines. And then just have a chain link fence surrounding it and have a mattress at the back of the cage to help stop the balls.

I've just always noticed the sport games always have more of an attraction. In my mind thats because you generally have a bunch of guys wanting to show off to their friends or girl friends.

Hope that helps!


Jeff~

[JohnYE]

Hey Joshwa,

It's great that you're thinking about going out on your own. I don't know if this is the kind of thing you're looking for, but many years ago I saw something at a music festival in Seattle that I've never forgotten. There was a booth there selling strawberry shortcakes. The thing is, they made them with lots of whipped cream so that they were about six inches high. They looked so great, with the contrast of the towering white whipped cream and the bright red strawberries on it, that every time someone with one of these desserts walked by someone else, the other person wanted to know where they got it. The booth had a line a mile long all weekend. Here's the kicker: they were selling them for $7.50 each - and this was years ago. Their cost couldn't have been much, so I'd imagine they were making a killing.

Obviously you'd have to deal with health department stuff, and I'm not sure if strawberries are available the whole time you're attending festivals, but it might be worth looking into.

Whatever you end up doing, here's to huge success!
-John

P.S. Be sure to let us know here on the forum once you're making it happen on your own.