We have had the same range of carts for quite a period now for everything from street food carts to weddings. Heck, we average over 500 events a year, so obviously they are popular. Why change when it works?
Thing is during the lockdown, we have had that rare luxury, time. We began looking at many of our competitors, and realised that they are doing things we are not. What is more galling is the knowledge that at one time, we would have been doing them first.
Because of this we have designed and produced a range of removable panels that totally alter the styling of many of our ranges of carts and bar sections.
To this end we eventually did just that, it was for a series of outdoor events, where we were serving 450 jacket potatoes a day, and we felt that the extra room this design allowed us would make it easier to operate.
Street Food Cart Small
Basic Street Food Option
Our first design is a bare bones, patterned plywood unit, meant to look slightly third worldy for a quirky feel.
It was used successfully for a number of the aforementioned jacket potato jobs, as well as doughnuts and hot dogs.
Sticking with the theme, the menu boards and clip art was all held on with mini cloths pegs, and the top sign stencilled with our favourite Sex Pistols font.
Red Ribbed Streetfood Stalls
Red Ribbed Stall
Our next version was made using deep red corrugated panels, this gave a more industrial feel and was used for a number of Hot Chocolate/Hot Dog days at local schools.
Either unit can be used for any of our range of catering options. Indeed it is plenty roomy to add two or three offerings in the same stall.
Over the coming year we intend adding a number of additional options to our street food carts. So keep checking back. Or keep checking our website for more details of street food units.
We get asked quite often where funfair rides come from. Everyone seems to think they are homemade, and to be truthful, there are a lot of children’s rides on the circuit that have been. In fact some of the most successful ride manufacturers started life this way.
For the bigger stuff though, this is beyond their scope. Thrill rides are becoming higher, faster, more daring. The engineering required for this is beyond the DIY market.
Over time a number of high tech, highly regarded companies have developed to design and build these types of rides. Sadly little of this industry remains UK based. The major players being Italian, Dutch, German and Spanish.
Over the course of the year we are going to take a look at the major players, and some of the now defunct former giants of the industry.
An Italian Entrant
The first of our spotlights falls upon FC Fabbri Group. Founded by Romolo Fabbri in Bergantino, an Italian village in 1950. The village actually became the home of a number of Italian ride producers after World War II.
The initial ride was the Avio, an aviation based ride that allowed the riders to fly their little aeroplanes up, as they rotated around the ride.
This eventually evolved into the popular Telecombat. An aerial ride that allowed the planes to rotate and face backwards towards the following car. You could then fire your guns and ‘shoot’ the opponent down. Not literally of course, what happened was the ride controls would drop his plane back down to ground level.
A New Direction
As the 1970’s rolled around, Romolo’s son, Licinio took over, and expanded sales beyond their traditional home market and into the rest of Europe and the Middle East. By this time they were producing a number of rides, including the Tagada, Kamikaze and crazy Dance to complement their Telecombats.
This expansion continued, and in the 90’s they founded FC Fabbri Park Srl, to spread the company into the world market.
Roller Coasters
By 1998 they had launched their first roller coaster. The Wacky Worm type ride
As of 2019, the group has built 24 roller coasters around the world ranging from the original Wacky Worm type through to the newer Spinning Mouse coasters.
Thrill Rides
Of late the company has found success with pendulum type thrill rides such as the booster, selling over 50 of these since 2000. This is loosely based on an old type of ride called the dive bomber, only much higher and faster. Other companies produce similar rides such as the KMG Speed and Zamperla Turbo Force.
FC Fabbri Group Giant Wheel Division
In 2002, the giant wheel division was founded with the manufacture of their first wheel over 40 metres in height.
They now possess the capability to produce wheels upto 100M in diameter, and pro actively seek out sites suitable for erecting wheels. Their engineering prowess make them the only European company to have installed a giant wheel on top of a large building.
The Fabbri Group have the design and production capabilities to undertake unique and one off commissions taking their funfair rides in a totally new direction. These include an aerial restaurant and a monorail system.
From the humble beginnings of the Fabbri Group with the Avio, the company now encompasses a complete range of attractions from Children’s rides through to the largest of travelling giant wheels. It sells its products throughout the globe and is definitely an Italian success story.
In my younger days, I often played Russian roulette with the fuel in my vehicles. Many of them I knew to within about 500 yards how far the fuel would take me. I remember once my dad taking my sister out for a driving lesson. I was laid under a small lorry I owned repairing something when I heard my dad walk up the drive.
Seems he ran out of fuel about 4 mile up the road, there wasn’t mobile phones in those days, and he didn’t have any money on him for fuel, so he had walked all the way back to get some. Hearing him shout to my mother ‘Where is the little bA*&^rd, I am going to kill him. I decided discretion was the better part of valour and stayed where I was.
Redcar Gala
I had booked a shooting gallery into a gala in the North East town of Redcar. This particular gallery was built into a 6 wheeled Foden lorry. At the time it would average about 12mpg, so was fairly thirsty. Anyway, I arrived at Redcar, drove onto the allocated pitch, and it promptly conked out of fuel. Oh well, I would operate, get the day over then worry about refuelling.
As it turned out it was a bit of a poor day, and everything was finished by about 5pm.
My at the time mate Arthur, owned a transit van, I asked to borrow it so I could go and fill a 5 gallon drum up with diesel. This would allow me to then return with the lorry to the fuel station and fill it up.
6 Wheeled Foden Funfair Transport
The Fuel Station
I arrived at the fuel station, and in truth pulled up to the pump a little faster than I should have, I was in a hurry. As I braked, again a bit sharp, I heard an almighty explosion, and my world instantly turned white.
Now, I had read in the past about people arriving at the afterlife and seeing a bright white light. This white light was more of a murky grey, but hey, I couldn’t see brimstone and fire so I figured I had gone up, not down.
I was wondering what had killed me, brain aneurysm, heart attack, stroke? Now at this juncture, I became aware that I couldn’t actually breath, and my respiratory tract appeared to be full of gritty, awful tasting stuff. I have to admit, I wasn’t impressed with this afterlife, I mean, whats the point of life after death, if you couldn’t breath and you had a bloody awful taste in your mouth.
I wondered if I was going to spend eternity in the bloody van, or if there was more, so scrabbling around I managed to open the door. As I exited I tripped, landing on my knees and that bloody hurt. So the afterlife where I couldn’t breath I could feel pain? I was wondering about a transfer to the other realm, on the basis of I wasn’t feeling the love in this one. I vaguely remember Sunday school lessons, and I couldn’t recall this being mentioned.
In The Back
As I lay there I became aware that my breathing was returning, I also noticed that a lady at the next pump was looking at me quizzically. I asked her if I was in the afterlife, and she replied “No love, Redcar”
Being a bit non compis mentis at the time it took a while to process this. I wondered if she was an idiot, and why did they let idiots into heaven, but gradually realised I might not be dead. “Am I then, not dead?” I enquired, she looked at me funny, obviously wondering why an idiot was knelt in front of her asking funny questions. “Eeerm you look kind of weird, but I don’t think you are dead, I mean I can still see you”
I must admit, not being a student of the afterlife, I am not sure whether her being able to see me counted for anything. As realisation dawned that my demise was, as Mark Twain once noted, ‘greatly exaggerated’. I climbed to my feet and decided I needed to investigate. Best place to start was, I thought the back of the van.
Opening it I spotted the culprit. It turns out that Arthur was the proud owner of one of the worlds largest dry powder fire extinguishers. A fire extinguisher which has it happens was missing its safety pin to prevent accidental discharge. Seems that my enthusiastic braking had tipped the bloody thing over, whereupon said fire extinguisher had gleefully and molevalantly discharged what seems like half a tonne of dry powder in a matter of seconds.
The Aftermath
Now, as I took stock, I realised just how much mess I had caused. The entire van front and rear had a thick coating of powder. The cars at the side of me had received an instantaneous colour change. And you could no longer see through the window of the fuel station.
I still needed fuel, so filled the drum, secured it in the van and went in to pay. Cue howls of laughter from the occupants of the garage. Turns out I also was covered in powder. As one helpful prat, sorry person remarked, I resembled an anaemic ghost.
I got in the van to set off back and discovered I had a problem. The window was obscured, like, totally, I had to wipe peep holes in to see. I pulled over and decided I needed to ring Arthur and prepare him for what I had done to his van. He answered the call. I managed to croak “Arthur, your van”, That’s as far as I got, as I erupted into slightly hysterical laughter, Arthur screaming down the phone “What have you done to my van” didn’t help, I blame the contents of the powder, gotta have some effect right.
Into week 3 of the lockdown and we are making full use of Netflix. A friend had suggested the film Darkest Hour. The award winning biopic of Sir Winston Churchills earliest days as prime minister.
So one night when I had become sick of sitting at a computer doing promotional work, I powered Netflix up, found the movie and away we went.
Darkest Hour
Not the usual war film, I thought it started a little slow, but then became totally engrossing. Gary Oldman I thought was near perfect. A little worrying, because I am old enough to remember when he was too young to play that part lol. It captured the deeply flawed personality that was Churchill, but also just how strong the appeasement movement was at that time. I genuinely think had anyone else taken the role, we would have capitulated.
Bloody Kids
At one point my daughter wandered in. Enquiring what the film was about she sat a while as she waited for her kettle to boil.
At one point a scene with Churchill sitting at his desk appeared.
“Oh I have sat at that desk” she mentioned nonchelantly.
Really, when?
“Oh I didn’t tell you did I, a few years ago you had sent me on a corporate job at this old house, serving spiced wine I think. Anyway half way through the job, the guests had all gone into a conference. So I went and got myself a cup of coffee, well, there was this big old desk and a chair, so I plonked my coffee on the desk, and sat down to read my book”
Really I enquired?
“Oh yes, but I wasn’t there long”, this lady came into the room, seen me sat there and I thought she was having a seizure, when she managed to get her words out she screamed you can’t sit there that’s Churchills desk., “Well”, I said, “he isn’t using it now is he?”
Bloody kids. One of life’s great mysteries, is why my blood pressure is still the same as when I was a teenager!
Just a short one this time about a fiery dodgems ride. For a number of years we provided attractions to a college near Nottingham. The guy in charge Michael was really laid back and grew to be a good friend.
Anyway over time they kept expanding the campus at this college, so we went from attending with 5 or 6 large rides to eventually there was only room for the dodgems.
At last even that space was cut down, Michael told me he had lost about a third of the empty space and could I find him a dodgems to fit what was left. None of ours was suitable, but I managed to find another operator with a specially cut down version.
The Joys Of Using Someone New
Now I had never used this ride before, but to be honest it was all I could find to fit so I explained this to Michael and he was happy to go ahead.
The ride wasn’t the best visually when it turned up, but the safety checks were all present and correct, and it had received its annual inspection not long before.
The first half of the day went off without a hitch. We had games units there and catering so everyone was having a good time.
Riding A Dodgem When Your Are Blindfolded
Michael came up to me after lunch with a hand full of facemasks. He explained that the dodgems had actually been sponsored by a school for the visually impaired and that a number of students from the school had came to take a ride on them. He went on to say that would it be ok for the sighted riders to wear face masks to give them an idea of the struggles the other students faced.
No probs, I thought that was quite poignant, and a really good idea.
Blazing Inferno
I kept thinking it was a good idea right up until the point where one of the dodgem cars burst into flames. Well, that’s a bit dramatic so I will explain. The power to the dodgem car motor is transmitted through the metal floor, and through the pole that is sticking up from the back of the dodgem car.
The whole body, being in contact with the floor is usually negative polarity, and the pole is attached to the positive, as it is a D.C. power system, not the same as your usual household supply.
The section of the car where the pole enters is insulated to prevent the pole shorting to the body. Sometimes because of the continual movement of the pole, the insulation degrades. Normally you get a few sparks and you repair the insulation. Occasionally you do get an actual fire, again no big deal, you stop the ride extinguish it and either replace the insulation or remove the car.
Not this day. This day the insulation decides to burst into flame. But here’s the thing. Everyone on the ride was either blind, or wearing a facemask. So the cars were still running around the track with no one any the wiser.
Frank Spencer With An Extinguisher
The guy in charge came running out with a big fire extinguisher, which was good. In his panic he hadn’t thought to hit the emergency stop on the ride, which was not good.
He then proceeded to chase the burning car around the track to extinguish it. Thing is, the guy in the car was happily trying to drive around in circles. Seeing as he was blindfolded and didn’t know what was happening.
More to the point, the rest of the cars were still going at full tilt. The guy with the extinguisher was knocked down three times before he managed to catch the car on fire.
Of course once he set the extinguisher off there was an almighty ruckus. Imagine being blindfolded driving around in a dodgem car. Next thing you have a jet of compressed dry powder shooting down the back of your shirt.
The true star was Michael. Whilst this had been occurring, he and I had been leaning on the safety rails watching the drama unfold. Michael didn’t bat an eyelid, he just looked at me and said “Is it supposed to do that?”
“Hmmmn, not sure” I said, “Don’t think it is”
Now if you would like to hire dodgems that don’t spontaneously combust, get in touch.
