Wednesday, September 21, 2011

2011 C&B in Wisconsin #6

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Posted by Buckles at 9/21/2011 05:53:00 AM

5 comments:

Little John said...

25 Years ago Disney was pitching tents in parking lots for conventions, 25 years ago my job at Disney allowed me the down time to see how they were doing it. Back then we sub-contracted Kerby tents, a local business who hired inmates, Whistle Blower Sammy taught them a thing or two when he was in lock up. Since then Conventions has exploded, a great deal of Disney profits come from “Heads on Beds,” we get a cut from Hotel Row, not to mention our hotels. Kerby is no longer allowed on property, and the venders we use now are amazing. I think Simms cranes ding us about 600 bucks for 4 hours, and they have about a dozen or so cranes on property on a normal day. The parking lot hay day was about ten years ago and back then we’d dress up the lots with tents in mind. US First, a robot companion, was probably the most impressive tent. The main stage tent was big enough for two 747 to be parked nose to nose. I guess it is really not fare to call them tents, it’s not like we have to pick them up and move them. Today the big money is in marathons, PT would be proud. Each runner pays us over 100 bucks to run and we get the family’s heads on beds. Thousands of runners show up maybe five or six times a year. I make lots of overtime by helping set the up the start and finish line rigs, and we plop stages along the track, but we have lull lifts and we’ve done this a bunch. I’ve never had the chance to be around truss being pulled up from the ground, we mostly drop them in from above. I get a kick out of telling our riggers at Disney that at Circus World the dead man cable was attached to the high wire acts semi truck parked outside of the building, and a hole was punched into the wall of the building with enough accurately as not to let light in.

21 September, 2011 17:56
Chic Silber said...

As if that was the only possible

light leak Little John not to

mention the rain (a little poke)

When did "The Greatest Place..."

cease to exist

21 September, 2011 20:31
Little John said...

When were you there?

23 September, 2011 19:27
Chic Silber said...

Several site visits before Mattel

took the project away from Irvin

& then later on when they asked

him to send a team to fix some

of the worst of the production

elements along with some of the

truly legendery circus folks

After that it was now & then to

meetings that made my eyes glaze

I've got some intereting paper

in the old file cabinet here

23 September, 2011 22:19
Little John said...

Very interesting, it would be great to compare notes. I worked at Circus World from 1976 to 1986. I now am 200 pages into my memoir and just getting to Circus World. It’s been a struggle to find facts among what I may have embellished these last 55 years. I am certain the Coronas punched a hole in the stage left wall and had the dead man to their motorcycle act attached to the tractor of their semi. However this may have been the install and a concrete base would have been added. But, if I were to add a story to my writing about the Coronas (woops 2 or 3 just came to mind) I would recall Papa (I am not sure if they called him Papa but it reads so well) I might write about when I saw him splicing cable by smacking it on a brick

24 September, 2011 20:28

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