Well we've just managed to get to bed after a heck of an hectic week. We attended 3 corporate events and Stokesley show (a 4 day funfair) in 8 days.

It kicked off in west yorkshire with a family funday for the staff of Londis (a chain of convenience stores), we didn't run that event, we provided attractions to an agent. From there we hightailed it up to Newcastle Upon Tyne for Gamesfest 06, this was an event for the staff og the Gamestation chain of stores, it was probably one of the highest budget events we've supplied attractions to, with an estimated £500,000 being spent. The Metro Radio Arena was hired for 7 days, a giant circus big top was erected, and we filled it and the surrounding carpark with attractions. This was an unusual one for us in that we supplied not only the funfair rides, but a diverse range of extras such as tattoo artists, palm readers, inflatables etc. We had a couple of last minute hiccups with suppliers letting us down, but due to the extensive contingency plans we had in place these were all resolved before the kick off.

From here we had the short run South for Stokesley Show, a long established and very succesful funfair and agricultural show. We lost friday night to the weather, but overall business was quite good. After a late finish there, we had to move equipment into west Yorkshire for an upcoming event, whilst simultaneously erecting a small funfair in the grounds of Newcastle University for the freshers event. This is one of three that we are attending for the University, and its always a pleasure to work at these types of events.

We finished around 4 a.m. and then had to move everything down into our West Yorkshire base, ready to be set up at a small funfair the next day.

Well, we've just finished at Doncaster Leger, and as predicted it was depressingly poor. Most traditional fairs have followed this pattern and its been really hard going all year. On the upswing, our corporate activities have really taken off, we've just come back from another event at the National Coal Mining Museum for England, we have picked up another couple of University events and we are in the running for half a dozen other coming events.

On a different note, an event we recently attended had a landtrain operating their. It was some charity or another that operated it, which isn't a problem to us, but the train in question drove through the spectators at the event. Now we have to carry out and supply risk assessments for every facet of our operation, we would never had operated that train on safety grounds, more pertinantly the Health and Safety executive would never had allowed us to operate it, so why are our rules so strict, yet others so lax?

I'm beginning to feel that the City of Ripon has a hidden dark side. We have attended a number of events in the Market Square and been well pleased at all of them. Last November we attended an event on the racecourse and it was a complete washout. Well it has just happened again. We just finished setting up the helter skelter at a funday on the course when it started to rain, within 15 minutes it was torrential and continued for most of the day. We didn't actually begin operating the attraction and decided to pull it back down.

After 2 hours in in a monsoon with 25 m.p.h. winds we finally had it ready for the road. Renny and I were like a pair of drowned rats by this time but looking forward to going home. We moved the helter skelter to the roadside using a 4 wheel drive vehicle with little trouble.

When it came to moving the 6 wheel lorry we were using to tow the helter skelter we hit a snag, over the day it had sunk into the ground and wouldn't move in any direction, we tried skid mats, towing it with the jeep, digging it out all to no avail. Eventually we managed to contact a council depot to send a tractor, but that wouldn't reach us for nearly 2 hours. When it did arrive it only just managed to pull us out, but in doing so left around 500 feet of ruts in the ground and half a dozen holes big enough to bury someone in. We spent another hour flattening ruts but to put the ground back in satisfactory order we will probably need to make another visit on Monday with a vibrating roller.

I guess in future we might just avoid this particular racecourse!

Due to the level of corporate bookings, and at the same time private party and wedding bookings we are receiving, we have decided to split our website operations. Our www.funfairgames.net site will still handle fetes, galas, charity and community events. www.funfairgames.net/for_hire is a new section of the site set up to deal specifically with corporate bookings, and our sister site www.candyflosscrazy.com has been adapted to handle bookings for weddings and private parties.

We have just added another corporate booking in the midlands for a large client. The event is being run on a tight schedule as a member of the royal family is visiting the function and we are not allowed to begin setting anything up until after she leaves, so we have virtually no room for error.

Wedding bookings are also coming in at a nice rate although most of them are for next year, but once they begin they will add a steady stream of business throughout the summer.