Gibtown's 2023 Carnival Trade Show: What's it like?

so good morning it's a Wednesday morning and we're heading south on a little road trip just south of Tampa Florida we're heading to the international independent Showman's Association trade show that is a trade show that is specifically geared toward the outdoor entertainment industry so this is held in Gibsonton Florida which is just southeast of Tampa it's more commonly referred to as Gibb town and about a hundred years ago this town became the winter home for a lot of carnivals and Carnival performers or circus freaks as they're more commonly called the town was full of nothing but freaks there wasn't anybody to pick on them and it also had special zoning that allowed them to keep their carnival rides and their elephants just in the front yard a lot of HOAs would probably frown upon right now so the international independent Showman's Association it's sort of a fraternal organization and they have a permanent Clubhouse there in grounds where this trade show is held and then across the street they also support and maintain a museum uh it's kind of a museum of Carnival history so we're going to be visiting that while we're there too so when you think about carnivals and things like that there's a lot of things you need to run a carnival it's not just the rides you need the concession stands you need the prizes you need insurance and all of those vendors are going to be represented at this show here's the wisdom Gravitron it's so cool to see all of this equipment brand new and an umbrella ride with motorcycles really nice looking truss there were quite a few Bunkhouse vendors showing off their sleeping quarters for the crew as well as commissary wagons this company makes tents banners wraps signs Valley cloths pretty much anything you can sew out of vinyl a lot of this equipment from Amusement devices and Manufacturing seems to end up with the rental market foreign Expo wheel they're made up north by me up in Maryland practically in my backyard maybe that's actually my front yard this Visa group dog ride had been trailer mounted by rides for you and I'd been following along the progress on Facebook the weeks leading up to gibtown this is a 30-seat one trailer swing ride and at the time of this video it's currently listed at usedrides.com for sale I always keep an eye on how rides are racked and I really like how the groovy bus ride trailer just sits right down on the ground I've been told that this show is a lot smaller than it had been in previous years and I'm not sure that's a result of still recovering from the pandemic or if trade shows are just not as important a means for people to gather information anymore but either way I still had a good time there were several concession trailer manufacturers at the show or grab joints as they're called the worst part is seeing all these shiny new trailers there was all they did was made you hungry because none of them were selling any food I like looking at the concession trailers and the game trailers and try to figure out how they fold up the Peewee burger stand was open inside though so we got to try the world famous Peewee Burger inside the building there were tons of plush vendors as well as posters and printing you can also buy all the equipment you need to outfit a popcorn stand or a snow cone stand cotton candy stand or fresh squeezed lemonade and even ran into the action lighting Booth which is where we got the lights for our restoration it's a rather large classified ads board sponsored by usedrides.com I kind of blurred it out because I didn't know if these people wanted their phone numbers on the internet all sorts of signs so that's a quick run around the show we're going to run over across the street now and check out the museum foreign has an overwhelming amount of displays tucked into every corner I thought this restored Spitfire ride tub was pretty cool this is a real fabricable together thing it's a kerosene fired Foundry burner heating up a cotton candy machine that's powered by a sewing machine treadle I spent quite a bit of time examining the construction of this Ferris wheel from 1903 and I've come to the conclusion that I'm pretty sure I could build that in my backyard so this King ride is one of the reasons I was looking forward to coming to the museum it's one of their utility rides that's populated with nothing but tug boats and that's the same Tugboat tub that is on our combo ride [Music] thank you I need to find a source for those missing Bells these little cars come from a time when they actually had live monkey races at carnivals foreign I always enjoy seeing the pretzel cars or just dark rides in general I'd love to restore dark red someday [Music] they have a nice little library on the second floor and I got kind of excited because I misread this book and thought that it said King brochures I got special permission from the museum director to look at this only to find out it actually said King Brothers Circus there's a model carnival on the second floor that I just found completely fascinating there's 15 000 hand-painted people 127 rides 74 shows 275 concession stands it's what I would call the greatest Carnival That Never Was there's rides on there that don't travel anymore there's some rides on there that I don't think have ever traveled in the United States they're they're only European rides it's really impressive just to walk around this thing it took me a full 15 minutes to walk completely around this model there's a chance turbo ride and a little bit further down the display there's a raven there were only two Ravens ever made there's a pair of Sky Wheels we've got both the ring of fire and the High Roller side by side this is the first of two Gravitron rides on the display there's so many neat details on this display even down to the workers just fooling around behind the scenes small little kitty land and that appears to be a model of that Spitfire ride that we saw the tub from earlier and if one model wasn't enough there's actually two this one also contains some really rare rides there's just so much more here that I don't have time to show you if you're ever in the Tampa area do yourself a favor and pay a visit to this Museum just be sure to check the website for their current hours and if you like content like this click that link to the left and come along for the ride

Channel: Pete Rondeau

Views: 8,031

Keywords: carnival trade show, gibtown trade show, carnival trade shows, gibtown 2023, gibtown, gibtown florida, Pete Rondeau, gibsonton florida history, showmens museum, gibsonton florida, Glory Days Amusements, carnival museum, carnival rides, traveling carnival history, traveling carnival, carnival history, things to do in tampa, Traveling carnival rides, carnie life, carnival ride for sale, Carnie lifestyle

Id: k3dncV08CkI

Length: 12min 1sec (721 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 26 2023