Inside the secret nomadic life of an Ekka showie

It’s the job with no penalty rates, overtime or weekends off and a minimum six-month road trip between towns and cities putting smiles on faces and bums on seats. This is what it’s really like being a “showie”.

There’s no penalty rates, overtime or weekends off, it’s a minimum six-month road trip between towns and cities putting smiles on faces and bums on seats.

Showies are usually born, not made. Children are educated in show schools and grow up learning the business tricks of the trade - all transferable in the “real world”.

Some come into the industry from the outside but most have parents, grandparents and great-grandparents who’ve lived the nomadic life.

With the Ekka in full swing in its resurgence following two years of cancelled shows, The Courier-Mail sat down with a pair of fourth generation showies for a deep dive into the lifestyle.

Trent Woodall, 41, is on the road from late March to October. He leaves his home in Geelong for sunny Queensland and it’s country show circuit every year, before heading to the metro shows in Adelaide, Sydney and Melbourne.

Trent Woodall in the Kids Carnival area of the show on the People’s Day public holiday. Photo Steve Pohlner

His on-site trailer is converted into an office with a desk, laptop and couch that’s tucked in behind his Enchanted Circus set-up, parked near the Ekka’s animal nursery right in the thick of things.

This year Mr Woodall literally brought up the circus, with the ghost train ride among others all loaded onto five semi-trailers or packed on to a train.

He’s booked into an inner-city Bowen Hills apartment overlooking the site, something vastly different from the caravan he uses for country shows.

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He said it was an “eight-days-a-week job and that planning for any show starts months out and once one show is over it’s off to the next.

“The logistics side is very big. You’re planning months out. Its long hours, the travel and the anticipation before shows,” Mr Woodall said.

“You’re planning trucks, cranes, rent, it’s a lot and you don’t get any real relief until the end of Melbourne show. But we do love it.”

Savanah Fisher, 25 of Wallan VIC, packing up the games in Sideshow Alley after the Ekka was cancelled in 2021. Picture: Liam Kidston.

Being a Brisbane boy who was schooled at St Peters’ Lutheran College, Mr Woodall said being back at the Ekka gave him sense of belonging again.

The fact it came following the devastation of 2021 being canned was made all the sweeter.

“My grandparents had a lot to do with the Ekka over the years. I think it’s has that essence to it, the 150 years of history,” he said. “There’s something about it.

“After work you go to the Cattleman’s Bar, and it’s all salt-of-the-earth people. They’re drinking and dancing. There’s something so charming about it.”

Mr Woodall said the Covid pandemic had decimated the industry and the carnage from its aftermath was still being felt with a massive worker shortage.

“If you’re talking just business, it was a disaster, almost irrecoverable,” he said.

Showie Trent Woodall said he was stoked to be back at the Ekka. Photo Steve Pohlner

Now it’s the labour crisis where well-above board wages go nowhere.

“I’m offering 25-30 per cent above board wages and basically being turned down. There’s no local workers unless you’re willing to pay even more and there’s no backpackers travelling,” he said.

“It’s great gig for backpackers. They get to travel and see Australia and put money in the bank.

“Everyone has had their own battles and demons, but it’s been awful.”

For fellow showie Emile Verfurth the past two years had been brutal.

He had owed his home outright prior to the pandemic but when the $20,000 monthly bills kept piling up, the JobKeeper payments were a pittance.

“By the time Covid was over I owed $170,000 on it (the house). I had to borrow on its equity to keep it going,” Mr Verfurth said.

“2020 was all cancelled. So I had 12 months with no work at all. Then the year after it was very patchy. You’d prepare for a show and it was cancelled.”

Emile Verfurth at the Gympie Show a few years ago.

Mr Verfurth said he forked out about $40,000 for fuel, staff and accommodation fees for last year’s Ekka and had fully set-up the dodgems, games and the fun house only for the hammer blow to come crashing down.

However with the worst of the pandemic seemingly behind the industry, Mr Verfurth said there was a renewed hope for showies.

Mr Verfurth said growing up on the circuit was a bag full of fun.

The show children, as expected, have the time of their lives running amok throughout Sideshow Alley.

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He said the biggest change he’s seen was the education system for showie kids, with a dedicated trailer now supplied for schooling.

“When I grew up it was the school work would come in the mail and a mum would teach us, now the kids get up in the morning, they have a school trailer and do their lessons,” he said.

“It’s a lot better having these travelling classrooms.”

Originally published as Inside the secret nomadic life of an Ekka showie