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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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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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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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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“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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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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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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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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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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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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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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We had an interesting week just gone, perfectly illustrating the wide variety of jobs we undertake. We started off by travelling down to Godstone in Surrey on a Tuesday afternoon. Once there we set up a number of attractions ready for the arrival the next day of Trinny and Susannah for their Undress the Nation series. We were providing a traditional village fete backdrop to make the program a little more visually pleasing. We spent a large part of the Wednesday morning moving things around as the director etc wanted to try different angles on particular shots. At one point both of the stars of the program had a go at making candy floss, and did quite well for novices, and then proceeding to walk around eating it, bet they don't recommend that to their subjects!

After the derig on Wednesday evening, we drove around 70 miles to Winchester, spent the evening their and then Thursday morning set up for a telecommunications company fun day. Arthur travelled from the North East for this one, a round trip of about 700 miles! We only operated for 2 hours so it was short and sweet and we were soon on our way home.

Friday was a day off, we had equipment at various events, but nothing I needed to attend personally. Saturday we were off back down the country to a wedding at a stately home in Frome, Somerset. We only supplied a coconut shy there, but thanks to the design of our units we have some that can be fitted into the read of a Hatchback car so the fuel costs are kept to a minimum. Sunday saw us providing candy floss and popcorn to another wedding, this time at Blenhiem Palace in Oxfordshire. This has to be the most stunning venue we have attended to date. In truth I think you would need to be in Buckingham Palace to trump it. The drive in past the huge lake with the semi submerged bridge is awesome. This continues right through the impressive entrance gates, courtyard and main buildings.

Although the day went well, we were a little concerned at the fact that we were placed in the Indian room where the children were being entertained. This in itself wasn't the problem, the fact that there were no adults to supervise the kids was. After expressing my concerns to a couple of the parents, Louis turned up. He seemed to be some sort of child minder, however I use this word in its loosest sense, as all he seemed to do was sit immobile in a chair grinning. The grin was somewhat reminiscant of Jack Nicholsons performance in the Shining and I think given the chance I would rather have left the kids unattended. Predictably as boredom set in the kids began to explore, and it was reported that his Grace, who was in residence at the time, was none too impressed by gangs of kids rampaging through his flowerbeds!






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I've just encountered an interesting problem. We switched our catering units to Fairtrade a while back and since then we have used only Fairtrade sugar on the candy floss carts. Whilst picking up some sugar from a supermarket for a last minute job I took the time to read the blurb on the back of 2 different packets. The Tate and Lyle packet made a big splash about how they were switching their entire production in this country to Fairtrade and were bringing the sugar in from 3rd world producers. Silver Spoon on the other hand made a big deal of the fact that they support British farmers by using British sugar beet, also their sugar is transported only a few miles thus being much better for the environment.

The dilemma is do we continue with our Fairtrade policy and save the 3rd world, or switch to Silver Spoon and save the environment?


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The very first stall of my own that I operated was a shooting gallery. It used the Brocock range of pistols which looked like real guns and used a clever system of mini air cartridges which resembled bullets. You charged the cartridge up, placed a pellet in the end and then loaded the pistol just like you see the cowboys doing it on telly. You then had 6 rapid shots, opened the cylinder and ejected the used shells. Great fun and a successful game. A few year ago the law changed and these guns were outlawed. They now carry a 5 year prison sentence for possessing one. It seems that some criminals were having the guns altered to actually fire .22 calibre live ammunition. Now I am not allowed to use these guns because they in theory can be converted to fire live rounds. I can however quite legally use the firearms exemption certificate that I have been granted, to buy guns that have been manufactured to fire live rounds from the very start, really logical.

Whilst running around Yorkshire recently trying to find some replacement cork guns for one of our corporate games units, I was relating this scenario to the lady in charge of the gun dealers I was patronising. It turned out she had a better story. It seems that a young 16 year old employee at the store had applied for and been granted a firearms certificate, so he can quite legally buy rifles and live ammunition from the aforementioned store. However because he is under 18 they cannot legally allow him to buy an air rifle or pellets? as it is classed as unsafe. What sort of morons sit in their ivory towers making up these deranged rules?

Victorian Sidestalls For Hire

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The recent event we attended at Yarm, (the revival of its gala after about 70 years) turned out to be quite a success. We only attended with a Big Wheel, helter skelter, round stall and catering unit, due to the fact that we were positioned right outside a shop that is renowned for its rabid opposition to Yarm fair. The shops owner must have an automatic system for complaining to the local papers, as one year when the fair was a week later than normal, his objection was printed on the normal dates moaning about the fair being in town when it wasn't!

Anyway to make matters easier I had arranged with the town council to have a section of the high street coned off to allow me to pull the helter skelter on and Micheal to pull the wheel into position, the idea being that the two biggest items were to be set up the day before. I was pulling on at 6am and had arranged for Micheal to get there around 7. I turned up a little after 6 and the area was coned off alright, unfortunately there was a Lexus car parked right in the middle of where Micheal was due to stand. I got set and when Micheal arrived we measured up to see if we could squeeze in anywhere. Unfortunately the car was positioned in the perfect place to prevent the wheel building up. I telephoned the local constabulary and told them the problem, and they told me they would be in touch. About an hour later having heard nothing, I rang the chairman of the local council and asked him to ring the police for me. Within 5 minutes a traffic car turned up. I explained the problem to the officer and he promised o try and sort something out. He returned 10 minutes later and told me that the car was registered to an estate agents that didn't open until after half nine. He then tried the car door and it opened! Not what you would expect from a 2 year old Lexus. I asked if we could push it out of the way, but he flatly refused, (if we had tried the door it would have been half way down the high street and we would be built up already), I asked if the car could be towed, which we have had done in the past, most notably at Northallerton Mayfair. What happened there was the police rang the number for the registered owner of that car and his wife answered, "You husband's car is causing an obstruction in Northallerton High Street" say's Mr Police man,
"No my husband is in Peterborough on business", replies Mrs inconsiderate car drivers wife,
"Its definitely in Northallerton" challenges our friendly police officer,
"Definitely is not" was the wife's reply. In the end the police had the vehicle removed and it transpired that the car driver was engaged in a clandestine affair with a young lady living just off the high street!

Unfortunately this police officer told us that they couldn't remove the car as it was not causing an obstruction on the high way, he then went on to explain that we would just have to wait until they could contact the owner and have the car moved. My problem was that we had a 75ft long vehicle blocking one side of the road in a town that after 8am is tremendously busy. "I'm in charge of the traffic here," stated the officer, "I will ensure you do not get a ticket for parking." We actually sat there until nearly 11 o'clock before the bloody car driver had sobered up enough to move, and true to his word the police officer ensured we didn't get ticketed, much to the chagrin of the local traffic gastapo, sorry traffic warden. We did have a bus driver shouting at us about making the access to the turning circle tight, why he had to shout is beyond me, if he had asked us to back up ten feet we would happily have done so.


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When we started this blog it was meant to be a mix of information on the fairground industry, personal views and a lighthearted look at our adventures (and misadventures) in the world of corporate entertainment.

Over time the stories of Arthur have attracted a steady following. Indeed its quite normal on meeting a client for the first time for them to become excited at the thought of meeting Arthur in the flesh. One lady I met commented on how much she enjoyed the stories of the, as she put it, "idiot you have wrapped around your neck." Indeed she was quite put out that due to the pressures of our workload, I haven't been keeping the blog updated as much as I would like. Anyway for all those fans of Arthur we now have a range of t-shirts available to show your appreciation of him. They can be ordered by sending an email to ila@funfairgames.net . Arthur would also like it to be known that he is quite amenable to appearing on talk shows or opening the odd village fete or shopping centre.




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I tend to read a lot, everything from fiction through to autobiographies. Reading the success stories of many businesses it seems they have a commen thread, an individual with exceptional drive, energy and flair. Within our business that person is Arthur. Pictured below is this human dynamo at the recent ball we operated at in Bristol.

What happened is that Arthur was running a college event Friday night into Saturday morning in Durham. I travelled to Birmingham to begin setting up for a large event for Mid Counties Co-Operative. On Saturday Arthur collected me from Durham and we set off for Bristol to supply attractions at the Goldneys Charity Ball. By this time both Arthur and I were feeling the effects of lack of sleep. On arriving at the Bristol venue it didn't help to discover that we had to carry everything for about a thousand yards to set up.




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For the past 3 years we have provided attractions to the annual Thornbridge Hall open day. This is one of the most stunning private estates in the country, and the 6th July is one of the very few days that members of the public are allowed into the estate.





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Here are the microformats for some of our upcoming events;




Gainsborough Riverside Festival:
June 7th-
8th,
at Gainsborough, Lincs





Future Perfect Festival:
June 8th

at the Racecourse, Durham City






Yarm Gala:
June 21st-
22nd,
at Yarm, Cleveland




The event in Yarm is a revival of a community festival that hasn't been held in over 100 years, a major brewery has agreed to sponsor the event and there seems to be a good line up of attractions. We are presenting a small Victorian style funfair in keeping with the theme.

Of the other events listed here, Gainsborough Riverside Festival will see us presenting another fair after the unqualified success of last year. This time they are allowing us to operate on the Sunday as well, in addition the other established fairs in the town have been canceled this year, so that can only help.

The Durham event is a new one so its a bit of a leap in the dark, but it sees us continuing our relationship with the City, where we have quite a number of upcoming events.


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