Midway Directory · Kinds of listings
Midway operators and travelling carnivals
A company that owns rides and games and takes them on the road, setting up the midway at fairs, exhibitions, rodeos and festivals through the season.
A midway operator is a company that owns rides and games and takes them on the road, setting up the midway at fairs, exhibitions, rodeos and festivals through the season. The trade began after the 1893 Chicago fair; in BC, West Coast Amusements grew from a used merry-go-round bought in 1950.
What it is
An operator owns the rides, the games, the trucks and the generators, and hires the crews. It signs contracts with fairs and plays a route, often the same towns in the same weeks year after year.
History, era by era
- 1893
- Showmen who worked the Chicago Midway took the idea on the road after the fair closed; Otto Schmidt founded one of the first such companies.1
- 1899
- Frank Gaskill’s Canton Carnival Company finished a 22-week season at a profit, the first organized carnival company to do so.2
- 1913
- Outdoor showmen founded the Showmen’s League of America in Chicago, with Buffalo Bill Cody as president.3
- 1950–1962
- Bingo Hauser bought his first ride in 1950; a museum exhibit dates West Coast Amusements to 1962, and its first fair contract was at Port Alberni.456
- Today
- Four generations of the Hauser family run West Coast Amusements.5
The midway connection
The operator is the midway. When a fair books one, it books the rides, the games joints and the people who run them for the weekend.5
Wherever people walk a row of booths, the midway is there in some form: the full kind, with rides, games of skill and food joints, or the quieter kind, with craft tables, home baking and a booth like ours. That walk, with family and friends and something to look at every few steps, is what this directory is about.
One fact worth knowing
- Before rides, Bingo Hauser ran a travelling animal show; he sold the animals to zoos.4
Questions people ask
Who runs the midway at BC fairs?
Many BC fairs book West Coast Amusements, which began in BC fairs at Port Alberni.6
When did travelling midway companies start?
Right after the 1893 Chicago fair; Gaskill’s 1899 company is usually credited as the first to finish a profitable season.12
Sources
- South End Historical Society: The Origins of the American Traveling Carnival. Read on · reference
- Doc's Midway Cookhouse (American Midway Archives): Canton Carnival Company. Read on · reference
- Showmen's League of America: About us. Read on · official
- Penticton Western News: Life is a carnival. Read on · news
- Digital Museums Canada (Community Stories): West Coast Amusements: modern carnival. Read on · reference
- BCBusiness: Carnie knowledge in Canada. Read on · news
How these listings work
Listings are free and factual; nobody pays to be here. Every line on a listing points to its source, official pages first, and each source shows the day we read it. What we couldn't confirm is listed on the page, not guessed. Each page says where the organisation works and links to the fairs and places in the directory it is tied to, but only when a source makes the tie.
Listed by name
Listed in the census (short listings)
The Midway Mailbag
New fairs, festivals, midways and attractions as we add them to the directory. About twice a month in fair season, less in winter.
Running a fair, a booth or a fundraiser?
Bring the Machine to your event: sell printed reading tickets, or run the machine on a screen facing the crowd. Reading codes for booths and fundraisers.
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