Hard times are hitting the carnival business.
After 80 years in business Davis Amusement Cascadia called it quits on January 1st 2020. 80 years!!
What went into that decision? That’s what we wanted to find out.
We spoke with Michael Davis, C.E.O. of Davis Amusement Cascadia.
Q – Michael I am glad we are talking today. What I’ve found in the past is people in the carnival business are often times reluctant to talk.
A – (Laughs). We all tend to be kind of clannish I guess. They keep everything close to the vest. I guess it depends on who you’re talking to and what you’re talking about.
Q – What is the attraction to the business you are in or were in? Why do you like it?
A – Well, I’ve led an unusual life. I was born into the business like a lot of people are. They’re a traditional family business. We were a business that was five generations of family deep. We were working alongside businesses that were the same. You have a lot of family ties to the people around you and to your clients and customers too but mainly the people you’re working with within the industry are pretty close knit community. We are raised with the same group of people and all of your peers have the same background. What you ultimately grow to love about it is the people in and around the business that you’re working with because you have so much in common with those people.
Q – When I think of carnivals I think of the James E Strates Shows. As part of the Carnival, the midway, they had human oddities or freaks as they called them and dancers, strippers. That part of the Carnival business is long gone isn’t it? You don’t see that anymore do you?
A – You really don’t see that. In places where in at today Gibsonton, Florida they grew famous for things like that and the residence that live here in what they did all the trades they plied. But, they’re a thing of the past. It’s just the changing nature of everything especially the changing nature of what we do. You know, those freak shows and girlie shows that used to be out there, where as part of a traveling carnival as an elephant was to a circus. Unfortunately both are gone these days. But, it was a time in American culture more than it was associated with the Carnival per se. It’s past. The businesses have evolved, like a live animal prize. You used to be able to go to a show and win a parakeet or rabbit or a potbelly pig and those are gone too. It’s an evolution like everything else.
Q – You played fairs from the West Coast to the Canadian border. That’s a lot of territory is in it? You would travel by what? Truck?
A – Yeah. We were over the roads opposed to a train or some other means. We had a small fleet of trucks and a small group of people that would travel with us, 35 to 40 in our slow season, may be 50. We do have 100 people traveling with us week to week in our peak season. We would usually begin around the Lake Havasu area in Arizona in February and we would spend a little bit of time in Las Vegas in the Valley. They would leave around Cinco de Mayo and head all the way up north and play all of our fair and festival dates up there and spend the summer up there because the weather was more kind to us. Then after Labor Day we would turn around and head back and spend the fall and winter back in the Las Vegas Valley. During that time we’d be open nine or 10 months a year. We play a day each week in a new place generally, sometimes two, sometimes three all at the same time. So, we were playing about 40 different annual events.
Q – Why is it that you travel by truck? Couldn’t you have traveled by train?
A – Not so much in the Northwest. Geographically it’s just a little bit different. If we had been restricted to the I-5 corridor it probably would have been easier. I guess the simple answer is that’s what we’ve always done and know how to do. The logistic answer is when you’re trying to get to a town in Northeast Oregon; a train is probably not going to do it. At least for that territory and 99% of the traveling shows in the country. The good old semi-truck was the best way to go.
Q – Something else I have noticed is that when the public goes to a fair, they expect to see the big rides like they have at Disney World or Six Flags. Is that the trend in the Carnival business today?
A – Oh, certainly. People are getting harder and harder to stimulate. There’s more entertainment options out there and those entertainment options are getting bigger and more outstanding and more astonishing and more extravagant. It doesn’t matter if you’re on the Las Vegas strip or in Manhattan everything has to be over the top. If it’s not over the top then it’s not anything at all. Unfortunately where you used to go to the county fair and the Ferris wheel was the big deal, that’s not necessarily the case anymore. These things that are coming out are extreme I guess would be the word. Extreme is the only thing that grabs anybody’s attention anymore. So, absolutely it’s evolving that way.
Q – What is really driving the high cost of doing business? Is it higher insurance rates? Is it the price of gas? It can’t be the cost of labor can it? It has to be insurance, right?
A – Well, it’s all the above. Insurance is huge. Our personal insurance bill exceeded $300,000 annually, probably closer to $500,000 annually. Our labor, especially in the Northwest where you were having their $15 an hour minimum wage movement, that stuff without even touching on whatever people need it or deserve it, the bottom line is aside from those factors it puts turnkey businesses out of business. You just can’t overcome when you’re paying somebody $15 and then you pay the taxes on that $15 you’re into that person at over $20 a head per hour times 100 or whatever it is we had it at any given time, plus over time all of a sudden this number is outrageously impossible to overcome. You have to be turning a large amount of money. Our fuel bill weekly was around $5000. $20,000 a month for fuel to run a trucking business really didn’t make us any money. It was a necessity to something else that we were doing. When you start adding all that up and then you think what can I charge the public to come to my event and then you realize you can’t charge them enough to pay the bills and make a little bit of money too. If you want to net $50,000 or more you have to gross $1 million and it’s incredibly out of proportion to what you’d really want to be doing.
Q – How many traveling shows are there like yours right now?
A – I would say 10 or 15 years ago there were more than 400 in the United States. Since we have closed down and another relative of mine has also closed down on the West Coast; I could tell you, but I can’t tell you one in the Northeast that will be going shortly, anyway I would say in the United States there’s probably less than 150 total. And that’s to cover all 50 states and all events. In the next few years I think that number is going to drop to less than 100 and then worse. It’s like dinosaurs. They’re going to be gone pretty soon. It’s the same way with the circus everybody blamed the elephant for the demise of Ringling Brothers but that wasn’t the case. It was all the same problems that were all having on whatever they’re level was. I think over time you’re going to see maybe the entire disappearance of people like us and what we did except maybe those huge, corporate big-box carnivals with 300 rides and they’re grabbing $150 million a year. They’re going to be able to keep going, but the general, regular folk family business I think you’re going to see disappear in the next 25 years.
Q – Did you ever go to your insurance rep and ask why your insurance rates are going up so drastically?
A – Oh, certainly. We would have those meetings annually. We go over things like loss runs. Unfortunately, because it was such; even though our loss runs were as near perfect as you could possibly get, but, it’s such a small community and such a small pool in the insurance world and so highly specialized, if something happens in Ohio, it’s still my insurance company. I know everybody there covering. And, it’s a very small world. But, they take those calculations in and they affect us all unfortunately. It’s not like you’re driving record saves you 15%. It just doesn’t work that way. If something happens on the other side of the country or even the world my insurance rate can go up because were all insured through the same company.
Q – Your uncle Pat is going to continue to Davis shows in Oregon and Washington. Is there still money to be made in those two states?
A – Yeah. He is still going and still aggressively going. He was operating on a little bit different level than we were. He may be turning in a few more dollars so he has a little better chance of staying in it indefinitely, maybe forever. He is, I would say one of the lucky ones. I’m happy to say he is making it which is what we all want to do at the end of the day which is get by and survive and reinvest and make a little money. And fortunately for him at least for now that seems to be working.
Q – Well, what happens to you now that your closed Davis Amusement Cascadia? Are you hoping that another Carnival will hire you in some capacity like advisory you or administrative? You don’t want to go back on the road do you?
A – Well, I could it’s what we’ve done. It’s what we’ve always done. Right now, were looking, my wife and I and my son are looking at our options. We have a unique skill set. It’s expensive but it’s unique mostly to the outdoor amusement business. It’s possible or even likely that we could wind up with another large show somewhere in the country as a management team into it again for somebody else. Or, I would look at fairgrounds work or quite frankly anything that provided the right situation for us.
Q – Would you have to go to a job placement agency or is it word-of-mouth that will get you what you want?
A – It’s just networking in this world and that’s one of the reasons why we’re in Florida today, putting the face out there and shaking hands with people we’ve known and worked with forever just to see what arises. There is a lot of opportunity out there and they like everything else is finding the right situation and there is always a need. There is a huge need in the industry for labor, mostly general labor. We’ve all had to go to Mexico to get staff because there’s nobody left up North unfortunately, but we would definitely be in a management capacity.
