For generations the funfair industry has been run by a small number of families that have organised the events then sublet the fairground to individual operators. In the past if anyone wanted funfair attractions at their events they only knew of these select few. With the advent of the internet this has all changed, we have put an immense effort into marketing our services and this has really paid off over the past couple of years.

Unfortunately the 'old' operators cant cope with competition, additionally they seem to feel that they have a divine right to control any funfair activity that becomes available. Not for the first time we have come up against another operator that feels we have no right to operate at an event and we've just received a phone call from a competitor telling us he is unhappy over our decision to attend the Yorkshire Carnival at Pateley Bridge. Know we have had calls like this in the past, but I must say this one was exceptionally civilised, usually they follow the Gary Cooper school of acting with a line something like 'This is my town' or 'if you don't leave we will run you out of townbut this time it was an amicable discussion. We indicated that we were not prepared to back down and the other guy accepted this, but no doubt he will make some attempt to prevent us attending the event.

Competition is part and parcel of any business, unfortunately some 'dinosaurs' don't accept this, 'Oh Well', dinosaurs rules the earth for millions of years, but you don't see many now.

As many people may or may not know, the funfair industry operates like a giant co-operative. If we have an enquiry from someone wanting to hire a ride we do not have, we would bring in another showman to fill the gap in our lineup. For a while now we have struggled to find a reasonably priced helter skelter operator for the many enquiries we receive so when we came across an old neglected helter skelter we decided to buy it.

It hasn't been used for about 4 years and needs some work to put it right. Fortunately our in house team possess the necessary skills to refurbish it to our high standards and we are beginning the task early next week. So confidant are we that we are booking the ride into Northallerton May Fair for its debut.

I said recently that the New Year had got off to a flying start, but I didn't realise just how good. Upto now we have added 10 new events, 2 of them looking to be quite large affairs. I can't post the details yet but will add them to the news section and this blog over the next few weeks. The 2 large events are both charity related, which seems to be becoming an habit for us.

The Aston Children's Carnival is in its second year and we are taking a bigger and better selection of attractions this time round (last year we got such short notice that we struggled to find any spare equipment to attend with). We've also helped the committee organisers out by designing and paying for a dedicated website to support the event, check out astoncarnival.org.uk. Additionally the organisers were struggling to find someone to help out with the PR and marketing of the event, we've taken care of that by finding a university graduate with experience in those fields to give her time to help the event. They get the help they badly need, the lady in question will get an impressive event to add to her C.V. and we continue with our policy of adding value to our services. Luvverly Jubberly as Del Boy Trotter would say!