What really happens at Royal Easter Show carnival revealed
Thousands of Aussies will flock to the Royal Easter Show today, but there’s a gross reality of the rides only workers truly understand.
Australia’s travelling “carnies” have given a glimpse inside life on the road where cleaning up undigested food chunks from puking punters is just part of the job that, for some, has led to a surprisingly lavish lifestyle of around-the-world holidays and Ferraris.
“Some days we have seven or eight people being sick,” said Frank Laurie, who runs the stomach-churning Breakdance ride.
“If it’s a hot day and people are drinking lots of soft drink, it’s worse because it fizzes up and, the next minute, they’re spewing.”
Thoughts and prayers for the fellow ticketholders who are queued up in the line below.
“The people waiting along the front cop a spray from it,” Laurie said.
He didn’t flinch at the thought of the horrific scenes. He recalled the memories with a seen-it-all-before drawl.
“I’ve cleaned up so much vomit, it doesn’t really worry me,” he said. “It’s only chewed up food – it’s not really gonna hurt ya. Of course, it depends what they eat. … Some people don’t chew their food up real good.”
The 66-year-old is a third-generation showman who has been on the road with the family biz since the age of 15, when he’d help his grandfather who operated a steam-powered merry-go-round.
The Breakdance is just one of 100 rides and games that have rolled into town for Sydney’s Royal Easter Show.
About 60,000 punters swarmed through the gates when they kicked open yesterday, with an expected 870,000 people expected to pass through the fair over the next two weeks.
Making it all happen are the showmen – many of whom spend most of the year travelling around to carnivals across the country.
Laurie has spent more than half a century on the road and has about 40 fairs on the calendar each year.
His son has joined the business and his daughter now runs a food stall.
He has properties in Geelong and Brisbane but spends more time sleeping in his truck than at either home.
“It’s hard work. Once you get in the business, it’s hard to get out,” he said.
Perhaps the carnival’s most in-demand showman is Garry O’Neill. He currently operates about 35 rides but has owned about 136 since he took over the family business in his 20s when his father died.
O’Neill, 74, was in the middle of an engineering degree and thought the career detour would just be temporary. He never went back to school. The carnival ride tycoon said he’s now earning more than what he would have as an engineer.
When he’s not operating the merry-go-round or Wacky Worm Coaster or Giant Slide, he’s driving his 2002 model Ferrari 360 Modena, which sells for upwards of $170,000. On other days, you might find him behind the wheel of his Porsche 911, which is priced from $170,000, for a brand-new model.
“I’m mainly a Porsche guy,” he said of the luxury German sports car. “I’ve had two or three.”
The Sydney-based showman only does eight major events a year and spends the rest of his time skiing at the snow (the youngest of his five kids, “all university educated”, is two-time Olympic skier Taylah O’Neill).
“We travel overseas a lot,” he said, noting the around-the-world holiday they went on last year, around the time it was discovered he had a brain-tumour.
This luxury jetsetting lifestyle isn’t the kind of world most people associate with “carnies”, O’Neill said.
“I was gonna put it on the Ferrari number plates – CARNIE – but my wife told me not to,” he said.
“The word carnie, it bothers a lot of people. It bothers most showmen. It doesn’t bug me. They think it’s a bit derogatory. But, in your life, you get called everything anyway, so what’s another word?”
Despite the perks, life in the circus isn’t all soft drink and fairy floss (or … ski holidays and Porsches).
“There’s so much paperwork and so much bureaucracy, it’s getting hard,” O’Neill said. “But I like it.”
Like many show operators, it’s a family business. O’Neill’s 17-year-old grandson wants to take over the rides from his pop, but only after he goes to university. It was a similar trajectory for Mark Marinovich, purveyor of showbags.
“I steered away from the family business – but sometimes the grass isn’t always greener,” he said.
The 38-year-old was standing in front of a wall of his van that was piled with novelty bags for KitKats, Marvel superheroes and footy teams.
He’s a third-generation “carnie”, whose grandfather emigrated from Croatia and became a magician before breaking into the world of carnival rides.
Marinovich took over the business in his 20s when his own dad retired.
Which showbag is the bestseller? Easy answer, he said: Bertie Beetle.
“It’s iconic, it’s been around for 61 years, and it’s nostalgic for people who bought it in the ‘70s for $2,” he said.
Now, the price has skyrocketed to an eye watering … $5.
“It’s not a lot of inflationary pressures, to be honest,” he said.
What showbag gets the least amount of love?
“The Aero peppermint bag. Middle-aged to elderly people like the peppermint, but the younger generation isn’t quite accustomed to it.”
Marinovich is on the road about four to five months of the year, with about 30 carnivals on the calendar.
It’s a rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle for a young single guy, who says there’s whirlwind love and lust to be found in the towns the circus travels through.
“It’s tough,” he said. “But that’s the life I chose and I’m happy with it.”
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