Category: Event Planning

Details of event planning services

Event Planning, Funfair Rides

The 4 Best Funfair Rides For Your Wedding

6 July 2020
Traditional Funfair Dodgems Ride

Nowadays weddings are no longer the staid formal affairs they used to be. People look to make them a more fun experience that all of their guests enjoy. Funfair attractions are becoming a popular option at weddings and parties. Here are the 4 best funfair rides for you wedding.

Dodgems

Easily the most fun you can have. Dodgems are loved by all ages, from young kids riding with their parents, to elderly grandparents. Contrary to popular belief, the clue is in the name. You are supposed to dodge each other, not crash head on. Though in our native North East they are more commonly referred to as bumper cars. Hire dodgems and you just can’t go wrong.

You can hire various types and sizes of dodgems. The two main options are continental or traditional. The continental are the latest, highly decorated type rides with additional lighting and bigger music systems. The drawback is they are supplied all folded up on a large trailer and need to be driven in to position. This limits some of the venues they can use.

The traditional type are supplied in little sections and are carried into position for assembly. This means they can be taken through a narrow gate, or into a building so they are far more flexible. They give virtually the same ride, but visually are not as impressive.

Continental Dodgems For Hire
Continental Dodgems For Hire
Traditional Funfair Dodgems Ride
Traditional Dodgems For Hire

Although not as good a ride as the dodgems, the Carousel is easily the most attractive and ornate ride on the funfair. Dating back to the Reign of Queen Victoria, the carousel is pretty much unchanged from that time. Although electric drive has taken the place of steam. Usually highly decorated with lashings of gold leaf, lots of lights and a traditional organ playing the music. If you want a fabulous set of photos with the bridal party, then this is the ride.

Victorian Carousel Hire
Victorian Carousel Hire

Traditional Ferris Wheel

Another of the iconic traditional ride is the vintage ferris wheel. A little more sedate than the dodgems, its an ideal ride for slightly older guests. The usual tagline is “See the fair from the air.” It will give your wedding a whole new perspective.

Ferris Wheel Hire
Ferris Wheel Hire

Now For Something Different, The Miami Trip.

This is a bit of a curve ball. Its more of a high speed thrill ride, perfect for teenagers and thrill seekers. It makes this list because of two attributes. Firstly its one of the most compact rides on the fairground, needing about half of what any other ride requires. So if you have a smaller compat venue, this might be your only option. Additionally because it is so quick to set up, it tends to be about thirty percent cheaper than most other rides, so its great if you are on a budget.

Miami Ride For Hire
Miami Ride For Hire

Whichever ride you choose, its sure to delight your guests. If you have the space and budget then we can usually do you a discounted deal on more than 1 ride. Although these are the 4 best funfair rides for your wedding there are many other rides available, so we can prepare packages to your precise requirements.

Catering, Event Planning

New Customisable Carts

29 June 2020

We hope you like our new customisable carts range.

Few people can claim that this Covid lockdown has been good. Well, I know a handful whose business has gone through the roof. We have suffered financially, but on another level it has helped us.

Because we have been so busy for so long we have pretty much cruised along. During the lockdown we have taken a long look at everything we do. In many cases we have realised we could be doing things better. Or building more into our services.

We have taken this and decided to do something about it. We are revamping and rebuilding our range of carts and attractions. Adding in house branding services to most of what we do. Generally doing things that at one time we would have been at the forefront in.

Custom Themed Carts

The first result of this has been to adapt our little Alpine huts to take a new interchangeable panel system that allows us to theme them up. We have always been willing to add flowers and ribbons or the occasional sign. The new system allows us to alter the character of the cart to suit the clients event.

Pictured below are the initial batch of options for our new customisable carts. These are being added to as we come up with new ideas. Additionally we can very quickly design and manufacture a custom panel to suit a clients needs.

We are in the process of building a 50 inch video screen, a new pixel art screen and a VW camper themed front. As our staff come up with more ideas they will be added to the lineup.

These are intended to be a starting point, additional decor and customisation can be added quickly, and in many cases at smaller events such as weddings, free of charge.

Check out our range of catering options that can be used with these carts.

Event Planning, Fun Story, Funfair Rides

My Kingdom For A Welder. Tales Of Misadventures.

18 June 2020

What happens when you don’t take a welder.

We put a lot of work into being professional, giving our clients an excellent service and hopefully securing regular repeat business. Sometimes though I think we are a bit like ducks, all calm and serene looking on the surface, whilst paddling furiously underneath to keep things going.

We seem to go for extended periods of time, without any major problems or issues. Then all of a sudden the gods of spite rear their ugly heads to slap us about a bit.

A few years ago we were contracted to provide a small family funfair for the opening of NUS Mutuals new headquarters. I wrote about our run in with Princess Anne’s bodyguards at the same event.

In the event, we got set up in the nick of time, operated to the clients satisfaction and was all derigged ready for the road by about 11pm. That should have put us on getting back home for around 2am.

We sent the girls on ahead in the car, I was in a lorry towing a children’s ride, and Arthur was in another lorry towing a trailer loaded with equipment.

Arthur

I’ll introduce Arthur, he could loosely be described as a business partner. There was nothing official, but we tended to do some of the larger jobs together. Physically he looked a bit like Austin Powers, only much much shorter. Think of a 4ft 10 version of Austin Powers, glasses and all and you would be on the right track.

Anyway, I was just approaching Tamworth services when I gets a phone call from Arthur.

“One of the wheels on my trailer is hot”

“How Hot” I enquired.

“Too FU*&^NG hot to touch”, was his expert opinion. That sounded like a wheel bearing was on its way out. I told him I would wait for him in the services.

When he arrived I found he was pretty accurate in his diagnoses, It was too hot to touch. I told him to jack the wheel off the floor so we could see how bad it was. When he did the wheel promptly fell off. The bearing wasn’t on its way out, it had left the building, deceased, kaput, as dead as a very dead thing.

Collapsed Wheel Bearing
Not our bearing, but one remarkably like it.

When Spares Are A Good Idea

Luckily, the bearing was the same type as used on the wheels of the children’s ride I was towing. I always keep a couple of spares in stock, as they have failed on me in the past. No probs, half an hour and we would be back on the road. We cleaned the stub axle up, changed the bearing, put the wheel back on, and I told Arthur to tighten the locking nut to hold everything in place.

Slight problem he told me, the threads had been damaged and the nut wouldn’t go back on. Crap, we will have to weld it on. “Got a welder” he asked, I did in fact have one, 100 miles away back at base. Why havent you got one was my retort, “Because I didn’t know my FU*&^NG wheel bearing was FU*&^NG going to FU*&^NG fail” was his eloquent reply.

My Kingdom For A Welder

So there we were half past midnight stuck in services on a Sunday morning with no welder. Luckily I thought of my Uncle Michael. About 60 miles away in Nottinghamshire, at that time he would have just been coming in from the pub. A quick call and he agreed to leave a welder at the gate of his property for us to pick up.

Cue a 2 hour round trip for the welder. We got back set the welder up, ran a cable to the power generator, started it up, and welded the nut on. Only we didn’t, as Arthur touched the welding rod to the nut, the generator stopped.

Having just installed it the day before, it didn’t have a fuel tank fitted, instead the fuel was in a five gallon plastic drum. This had moved en route and pulled the fuel pipe out so the engine was starved of diesel. Not an issue, we have purged the fuel system of air plenty often in the past.

My Kingdom For A Battery

We did that, turned the key, and nothing happened, the sodding battery was flat. Now we needed jumper cables, which were also back home. No problem, we were in a services, you could go and buy a set from the garage. You know the type, they are £3.99 a set, only in the services they add a 0 on the end.

No matter the cost we needed the bloody things. We connected them up and yay, the damn thing started. Only the rattling and crunching indicated that the starter motor hadn’t disengaged. It was now being torn apart by the engine running.

Arthur looked at me, “Just weld the FU&*^NG thing on and we’ll repair the starter tomorrow.”

We limped home just as it was becoming daylight, a three hour trip turning into around 8 hours.

Cheap Jump leads
Our Highly Valuable Cheap Jump Leads

Read one of our earlier tales of woe.

Catering, Event Planning, Fun Story

Cannabis Candy Floss, A New High

16 February 2020

Long one of our most popular desserts. A Californian (where else) company is taking it to new heights with cannabis candy floss.

Candy floss is now available from them laced with THC, or to give it the correct name Tetrahydrocannabinol .

For those who don’t know, this just happens to be the ‘active’ ingredient in cannabis. The bit that gives you the high.

The new floss, comes with a full 100mg of active ingredient present. Enough to give a new meaning to the phrase party snack.

Now, we aren’t going to argue the morality or otherwise of such a product. TBH we very much doubt its going to appear in the UK.

A few years ago the medical establishment was experimenting with using candy floss to deliver drugs to kids. Laughing at the time we wondered how long it would be before someone launched floss with recreational drugs.

Perhaps our new range of alcohol flavoured candy floss might be more palatable. Especially considering they are flavoured but don’t actually contain any active alcohol. We are launching with Brandy, Whisky and Gin, but if the reception is good enough will be expanding it over the summer season.

It makes you wonder though what cannabis can be added to next, there is likely to be a steady stream of food and drink coming this way.

Sadly we aren’t yet allowed to offer cannabis floss, but if you would like to hire a candy floss cart then we can help.

Event Planning, Fun Story, Photo Booths

Beginning Jaspers Restoration

22 January 2020

The engine out of our mini is in bits, spread around a number of specialist engine builders (MED and Southam Mini Centre), to be tuned up and the power output cranked up a bit. Although Jaspers restoration was meant to be a quick tidy up, its ended up becoming a complete makeover.

The bodyshell is in the blasters to be stripped of paint. So we have turned our attention to the rear subframe, the first of the parts we are refurbing in house.

It was a bit grotty to start with, but mainly surface rust so nothing to major to put right.

The swing arms were blasted, coated with cold galvanizing spray then topcoated with a Rustbusters product. The bushes and bearings were changed, new pins fitted, Goodrich brake lines, alloy brake drums, and specialist components rear hub assemblies fitted, along with DSN retrosport alloy brake plates.

Things like the handbrake quadrants are really for looks rather than performance, but hey if you are going to do it, might as well look the part.

To finish the subframes we fitted alloy trunnions, adjustable swing arm brackets, and seam sealed the subframe to prevent water ingress. Once the subframes are fitted we have some Bilt Humber anti rust wax, but we don’t want to coat the parts yet as it will make a mess fitting them.