The world of carnies is like nothing you have experienced
Written by Molly Alywin
People thought I was crazy when I told them where I was going for the summer. “You’re going to be a carny?” they asked, “Really?”
While it was a bit of an uncharacteristic move for me, it was not completely out of the blue. One of my best friends had been working for North American Midway Entertainment for a few summers, and had shared some unbelievable stories with me every time she came home. Since she had started spending her summers on the midway (the term typically used by carnies to refer to the center of the carnival), I had been curious and a bit jealous. The first two summers she had worked as a carny I had been unable to go – I had just started a new career as a tattoo artist and couldn’t afford to take an entire summer off. But when she told me that she planned to go back for a third summer, I knew I wanted to go with her.
It was unlike me to leave a relatively relaxed job that I absolutely loved to go work long hours and do manual labor across Canada, but that was why I wanted to go. I was feeling the itch for adventure and for change, and so in early June I packed a suitcase and flew to Winnipeg to start my three month carnival journey.
North American Midway Entertainment is one of the largest traveling midway companies in the world. Providing everything from food services to rides and games, N.A.M.E. travels through Canada and the United States and hits every major fair and carnival throughout the summer and fall months. It’s a seriously big operation with hundreds of people from every background you can imagine working day and night to provide North America with corn dogs, stuffed animals, and rides on the Ferris wheel.
Before I started working for N.A.M.E., I imagined carnies in a pretty stereotypical way: creepy looking old men with cigarettes hanging out of their mouths, persuading carnival goers to ride a ride or spend a few dollars on the ring toss. While I encountered a few people who I would definitely describe as the “stereotypical” carny, I found that a lot of the people working the midway were more like me – young people looking for a reason to get away from home and make some money, many of whom had little or no experience working at a carnival. The majority of my crew (a group of about 20 people running up to 8 games) were under the age of 30. At least a third of us had never worked for N.A.M.E. before, and had no idea what we were walking into when we arrived on the fairgrounds in Winnipeg and moved our suitcases into tiny trailers on the empty lot behind the midway.
The summer followed a fairly steady schedule: When we arrived in each new city, we spent anywhere from two to four days setting up all of our games (known as “joints” in carny lingo), while other crews set up their games or rides or food stands. When each fair officially opened, we worked in our respective games every day from open until close, with no days off. A typical carnival work day was 12 – 14 hours long, with breaks throughout the day. We usually made it back to our trailers or hotel rooms by 1 AM, and almost always stayed up late into the night drinking and partying with our crew, only to get up the next day and repeat the process.
Fair lengths varied depending on the city we were in. In Toronto, we worked 18 days in a row at the CNE, but in Saskatoon we only worked for 6 days. On the final day of the fair, we would work our typical 12 hour day, but once the fair had closed we worked late into the night (and usually the early morning) taking all the joints apart and loading everything back into the truck. Typically we went home, grabbed a few hours of sleep, and then it was off to the next city.
We were tired all the time, often napping in trucks or underneath joints during our breaks. But somehow we were never too tired to explore the cities and spend hours every night drinking, talking, and just generally not sleeping. We quickly became close friends with the people on our crew. It’s hard not to get close to people when you spend all day working beside them, and all night hanging out with them, and often sharing hotel rooms or trailers. The type of work we did brought us together. It was exhausting, but we all shared the exhaustion. It was annoying at times spending 12 hours on a midway and dealing with carnival-goers, but we all shared the frustrations. More than anything, it was exciting and it was different, and all of us got to share the excitement together.
I had more new experiences than I can remember during my summer with the carnival. I had my 24th birthday party in a trailer on the fairgrounds in Winnipeg, drank wine on top of a mountain in Banff, learned how to play craps at Cowboy’s Casino in Calgary, walked home from the midway barefoot and soaking wet during a thunderstorm in Edmonton and went straight to the bar to find my entire crew already there and drinking. I spent a day alone in a gigantic park in Regina, watched someone walk a panther on a leash down the midway in Saskatoon, lived in a high-end loft in Toronto with six other people, stayed in a sketchy hotel next to a strip club in London. Every good, bad, and weird experience was made better thanks to the people I got to experience it with. I made friends at the carnival that I know I will have for life, and met people from all over the world who have changed the way I think and act forever.
The carnival felt like another world separated from reality by its rules and norms.
The job tested my limits physically, mentally, and emotionally. I had never really been one for physical labor, but I surprised myself at the amount of lumber I could carry from the truck to a joint, and how many hours I could work in a row without complaint. I’m usually a pretty introverted, solitary person, but this summer I put myself out there in ways I never thought I could, surrounded by strangers with very little time to myself for three months. I decided to join the carnival for a change of pace, and that’s exactly what I got. It was a lifestyle that I could never have prepared myself for, but just the fact that it was something out of the ordinary made it one of the greatest experiences of my life.
The carnival felt like another world separated from reality by its rules and norms. As the summer went on, we forgot about the outside world and became totally immersed in the day to day dramas of the midway. Everyone knew everyone’s business – who was hooking up, who was breaking up, who had come to work hungover (or still drunk). The routine of the carnival sucked us in, and as the summer drew to an end, we all found ourselves struggling with the concept of returning to “real life.” When the last day of our carnival experience finally came, it felt like some sort of beautiful bubble was being burst. Leaving the carnival dream and stepping back into the real world brought to light just how unique of an experience it had been. We were suddenly faced with going back to regular jobs, normal living situations, and being apart from the people we had so quickly become close with. But my core group of carnival friends still sees each other fairly frequently – we’ve all moved to the same city and I don’t see our bonds breaking anytime soon.
When people ask about my summer at the carnival, I always say the same thing – It was the greatest summer of my life, but I’ll never do it again. I got what I wanted and more from my one summer on the midway, and I think if I went back for another summer it might tarnish my incredible memories. Plus, I don’t think I can deal with even one more day of watching hundreds of people eat corn dogs and cotton candy.
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