Discovering vintage fun at a new carnival museum in Brantford
BRANTFORD— Not content to let circuses get all the love, a new museum celebrates the quirk of carnivals.
The Carnival Museum Fun Factory is home to a “beautiful and bizarre” collection of bucket cars, carousels, guess your weight scales, popcorn machines, hand-painted “fat boy” and “gorilla girl” murals, vintage photos, fun house mirrors and even controversial penny arcade machines.
“You can come and wander around, have a look, but we don’t have everything in place yet,” says renovation co-ordinator Jim Conklin, a retiree from Canada’s Conklin carnival dynasty. “We’re about 75 per cent ready.” He’s hoping for a grand opening in September. The North American Carnival Museum and Archives launched in Ottawa in 2008 with charitable status. When it realized it needed a physical space for its memorabilia, it chose Brantford, once the carnival capital of Canada and winter quarters for various carnival companies.
The industrial area isn’t zoned for museums, so the Alice St. space bills itself as a “fun factory” and has a party room and small gift shop. Entrance is currently by donation.
There will be a small outdoor amusement park and carnival food such as candy apples, candy floss and popcorn. Staff are busy restoring, repairing, painting and creating bilingual signage.
One highlight is a collection of vintage “digger” arcade machines that were banned here. The coin-activated machines used to be filled with watches, coins and other eye-catching goods that were nearly impossible to win.
“These can be operated in such a way that they’re unfair to the public,” admits Conklin. “We’ve turned them into kids’ games.”