What an Amazing Summer!
We worked our asses off to create the Carnival Diablo Festival of Wonders, attempting to create something unique that No-One has experienced before... and I think that we accomplished our mission.
We started working diligently on the Festival in early July, building, promoting... and amassing a great team of people.
One of the most important things was location, we wanted a little slice of paradise for people to enjoy during their stay at the Festival, and we found that at Hayshore Resort in Carleton Place.
One of the key ingredients was to create a 19th Century Carnival atmosphere.
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| Carnival Game joints being created from scratch |
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| My girl Jess and her family pitched in to work on getting things done. |
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| Darryl, our primary carpenter. Working on making more Game Joints, he has been so helpful getting the Festival details built! |
I spent many days painting Victorian games...
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| painting Punks for the Monster Rack |
And of course I brought in all of my Major Attractions to set up for the Festival... including the Last Traveling Showman's Caravan in Canada.
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| unloading the Showman's Caravan onto the Grounds |
We set up the Freakshow next to the Showman's Caravan with a Single-O attraction in the middle. (a Single-O Attraction is one strange Freak or Act under one tent)
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| setting up the signage on the roof of the World of Wonders |
The days were long and we all kept hydrated... because, BOY it was hot out!
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| Havin' a Soda Pop! |
It took 2 weeks to build and set up the Festival of Wonders and we were very excited about opening to the public! And that was for 3 Reasons...
The first, because we wanted to bring the public something completely NEW to do for the Summer Season.
Secondly, because we wanted to see if people would come out to such a strange event.
and finally Third, because this was an idea that has been in the makings for 20 years and HAD to be tried!
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| The World of Wonders, The THING and the Last Showman's Caravan in Canada. Once these attractions were in place we started feeling that this could really be a winner! |
We had commercials that we put up on Youtube that kind of counted down the days before the opening. Here is one of the 7 commercials created...
We also had Full color Posters all over the place that looked like this...
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| FIRST Festival poster design! |
The craziest thing about the Festival was the fact that we secured the site in mid June and built and created the Festival in under 2 months! It was astounding how fast it all came together. Games were built, commercials were made, artisans and vendors were brought in and shows were booked.... and it was not as hard as I thought it would be. The idea was so damned good, it kinda just built itself. And the people involved were the best in the industry, I was VERY Lucky!
