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DEL MAR, CA (May 6, 2010) — The Solid Gold Series brings to the San Diego [...]]]>
Memories Are Front and Center with the Solid Gold Series at the 2010 San Diego County Fair

“Feel Good” Music from the 1960s and 1970s featured

DEL MAR, CA (May 6, 2010) — The Solid Gold Series brings to the San Diego County Fair the music of performers who first achieved fame during the 1960s and 1970s. These Thursday shows are free with Fair admission, and there is no reserved seating. These shows also are part of the Paddock Concert Series, each Thursday at 9 p.m.

Shows begin at 2 p.m. on the Paddock Stage. Artists are subject to change.
The artists are:
June 17 – The Temptations Review, featuring Dennis Edwards
June 24 – The Grass Roots
July 1 – The Spinners

The 2010 San Diego County Fair is presented by Albertsons|Sav-on.

The San Diego County Fair is the largest annual event in San Diego County and the sixth largest fair in the United States, drawing more than 1.2 million visitors each year. The 2010 San Diego County Fair will run for 22 days opening Friday, June 11 and closing on Monday July 5. (The fair will be closed the first three Mondays, June 14, 21 and 28). Gates open daily at 11 a.m., Tuesday – Friday and 10 a.m. Saturday and Sunday, and Monday, July 5. Admission is $13 for adults; $7 for ages 6-12 and 62 and older; and free for ages 5 and younger. Go to www.sdfair.com/fair.

The 22nd District Agricultural Association is a State of California agency that owns and operates the Del Mar Fairgrounds, Surfside Race Place, Horsepark Equestrian Center and the Del Mar Golf Center. The 22nd DAA produces five events each year: The San Diego County Fair, the Del Mar National Horse Show, Professional Bull Riding (PBR), The Scream Zone and Holiday of Lights. The Fairgrounds hosts more than 350 events annually, the largest of which is the live horse racing meet each summer, which is operated by the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club for the 22nd DAA and the State of California. For more information, visit www.sdfair.com

Our Project in Marine Land France– Pirate Themed water play system for 3,50,000 USD only.

Our project in Juku Park, Finland – 14 Slides from 9 to 12 meter Height with Platform for 16, 25,000 USD ONLY

Greetings!!

Our pleasure to introduce ourselves as Arihant Industrial Corp Ltd, leading manufacturer of Water Slide Equipment from INDIA since 1991. [...]]]>

Our Project in Marine Land France– Pirate Themed water play system for 3,50,000 USD only.

Our project in Juku Park, Finland – 14 Slides from 9 to 12 meter Height with Platform for 16, 25,000 USD ONLY

Greetings!!

Our pleasure to introduce ourselves as Arihant Industrial Corp Ltd, leading manufacturer of Water Slide Equipment from INDIA since 1991.
We have played pivotal role in building Water Parks across the globe in 25+ countries like USA, France, Finland, Greece, Sweden, Denmark, Kuwait, South Korea, UAE, etc.

Incase you are planning to Set up a Water Park or an expansion wherein we can be of any assistance, please feel free to contact us.

To know more about us, you can visit our website www.arihant.com.

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We are planning to visit USA and would like to give you presentation on our recently launched products.

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Email: infun@vsnl.com / mangesh@arihant.com
Website: www.arihant.com

Just to keep this topic moving…was the RAS cookhouse an overland truck? I’ve never seen any RAS loading list with any cookhouse listed. I would suppose it was a medium sized tent with a trailer mounted kitchen facility or [...]]]>

“Donaldson saw [...]]]> The Fascinating History of Billboard Magazine

“[Billboard] magazine was launched in the fall of 1894 by two partners, William H. Donaldson and James H. Hennegan, as a publication for the billposting business. Donaldson was a salesman for his father’s lithography company, which specialized in printing advertising posters. Hennegan also worked for a family printing firm.

“Donaldson saw a need for a publication that would inform the roving bill posters of industry news. What’s more, the new publication could help the Donaldson and Hennegan family printing firms stay in touch with their major clients.

“The new magazine was named Billboard Advertising and was published monthly. As declared on its ornate opening page, it was ‘devoted to the interests of advertisers, poster printers, bill posters, advertising agents and secretaries of fairs.’

“That first issue was dated Nov. 1, 1894. It was eight pages long and carried a cover price of 10 cents (90 cents for a full year’s subscription). The magazine was headquartered at 11 W. Eighth St. in Cincinnati, Donaldson and Hennegan’s hometown.

“The cover of the first Billboard Advertising carried a grainy black-and-white cameo of one R.C. Campbell, a Chicago advertising executive described within as ‘an infallible expert and reliable authority on that particular branch of the science of advertising embraced by the billboard.’

“This ’science’ was further explored in columns headlined Bill Room Gossip and The Indefatigable And Tireless Industry Of The Bill Poster, wherein readers learned that the bill poster ‘loves to be out on the street at night, when, should he discover a fire, he can bill the front of a building and then turn in an alarm.’

“By its first anniversary, Billboard Advertising was running a steady 16 pages; the one-year subscription was up to $1.

“In June 1896, the first hints of entertainment coverage started slipping into Billboard Advertising with the introduction of a Fair Department. Here the magazine began reporting on the carnival and fair attractions that often were advertised on billboards of the day. The magazine also began running ads for such colorfully named attractions as Cook’s Royal Roman Hippodrome & Equine Paradox and the high-flying LeRoy Sisters, billed as ‘The Dauntless Queens Of The Air.’

“In February 1897, Billboard Advertising made a major shift in direction. The magazine’s name was shortened to The Billboard, a handle it would carry until 1961. Listings of fairs and ads for outdoor attractions began to dominate. There were diving animal acts, hot-air balloon rides, baseball-playing “Nebraska Indians” and such extravaganzas as Capt. Bob Cook’s Water Show & Fireworks Co…

“By 1902, The Billboard’s cover was bannered with the words ‘Dramatic, Operatic, Burlesque, Circus, Billposters.’ This fairly summed up the entertainment scene of the day — as well as the magazine’s new priorities. Inside, the first two pages still covered bill posting, but beyond lay the new meat: 14 pages with departments like Stage Gossips, Tent Troopers and Street Fairs And Carnivals. The pages were crammed with long lists of fairs and attractions. Other pages carried news of show biz comings and goings, deaths and bankruptcies, openings and closings, robberies and railroad wrecks.

“Thanks largely to the growth of American cities and the rail lines that linked them, the entertainment business was thriving. And while the entertainers at fairs and carnivals continued to labor in relative obscurity, the stage had created a new class of stars. Veteran performers, such as Sarah Bernhardt, John Drew, Maurice Barrymore and Maude Adams had become household names; their activities were followed closely by The Billboard….

“The Billboard developed the Letter-Box, a mail-forwarding service for traveling performers. A precursor of today’s E-mail, the Letter-Box listed the names of performers whose mail was waiting for them at The Billboard’s offices. It presented a monumental task to the publication, but the Letter-Box created a link between Billboard and the creative community that remains unbroken…

Billboard Magazine “When the 1960s rolled around, the magazine was still called The Billboard and coverage of tent shows and carny pitchmen still shared space with music stories, charts and reviews. It was time for a radical change. And so, with the issue dated Jan. 9, 1961, the carnival and fair coverage was spun into a new publication, Amusement Business, and The Billboard took on a new name: Billboard Music Week. ‘For the first time, Billboard is no longer a general show business publication, but a weekly business journal for the professional user of music, with the emphasis on recordings, and of music playback equipment,’ the magazine declared…

“Today’s Billboard is helmed by president and publisher John Killcullen, with co-executive editors Tamara Conniff and Ken Schlager heading up the editorial team. Under their leadership, the magazine underwent a major redesign and repositioning in May 2005. Although music is still the heart of the matter, the magazine and its Web sites have expanded their scope to cover all manner of digital and mobile entertainment.

“Billboard is now read in more than 100 countries around the world. Billboard.com attracts more than 2.5 million unique visitors each month. The Billboard Music Awards is one of television’s most popular annual entertainment events. Billboard’s stories and charts are licensed for use in every possible media, including mobile phones…”

Robert, Amusement Business and Billboard magazines were once a part of a publication known [...]]]> Sideshow World, Sideshow Performers from around the world.

I always run across references to ‘The Billboard’ while reading sideshow related materials. Can you tell me what this was, when it started, who published it, and if it is still available? Robert, New Hampshire

Robert, Amusement Business and Billboard magazines were once a part of a publication known as “The Billboard” but were spun off from each other in the mid-1960s.
The Billboard was founded in 1894 it was originally concerned with carnival entertainment. On January 4, 1936 Billboard magazine published its first music hit parade and on July 20, 1940 Billboard published its first “Music Popularity Chart.”
In the mid 1950’s you could still find news for vaudeville, medicine shows, burlesque, night clubs, pitchmen, and a vast coverage of circuses, and carnivals. But by then it was already over half filled with the music and record Industry and a large portion had information about coin operated machines.
After the split Billboard started exclusively covering the music industry and kept the same name. The coin machine business was titled Coin World, and the auditoriums and stadiums were dropped a few years ago. Billboard has had a weekly publication called Amusement Business Magazine, it has been the international amusement industry newsweekly. Amusement Business coverage is 100% devoted to the business of parks, fairs, festivals and carnivals giving you more feature stories, more news briefs, and more in-depth analysis of the issues, people and products that make up the amusement industry.
The Amusement Business currently has it’s headquarters’ in Nashville. It is being folded into the Film and Performing Arts Group, and now will be published as a monthly publication. The Film and Performing Arts Group, also publishes The Hollywood Reporter, SHOOT, and BackStage magazines. and it’s going to be moved to Los Angeles.
In the 1930’s you could find The Billboard on every newsstand and it sold for 15 cents. I don’t believe that it is available on any newsstand now, and individual copies are $5.00. By subscription it is $112.50 dollars per year. Originally the Billboard magazine was the place if you wanted information on the business that afforded the names and addresses of distributors that handled everything related to the circus, sideshow and carnival business. It was a place where all showman and performers could advertise.
They no longer print for vaudeville, night clubs, burlesque, tent rep shows, medicine shows, magic, and pitchmen. In the late seventies they dropped circus. They used to have 12 to 14 pages a week on carnivals with dozens of ads, today Amusement Business has only 4 or 5 pages and maybe 5 or 6 ads for carnivals. It is a wonderful experience to find and read old copies. There are complete volumes maintained at The Showmen’s League of America in Chicago, and at their St Louis and Toronto branches. I think the Pacific Coast Showmen’s Association in L A has a set also. The Greater Tampa Showmen’s Association will have them at the Gibsonton Showmen’s Museum (if it ever opens). The Public Library in New York City also has a collection and there are a few big city libraries and universities that have the collection, but they are usually stored on micro film.
Today, Billboard magazine maintains several international pop charts that track the most popular songs in various categories on a weekly basis. Its “Hot 100″ survey ranks the top 100 pop songs and is frequently used as the standard measure for ranking singles in the United States.
The Hot 100 chart is compiled by tracking single sales as well as songs’ radio airplay on a variety of different station formats, including Urban, Modern Rock, Country, Adult Contemporary, Top 40, Rhythmic, and Adult Top 40. Currently, because few musicians release singles in America anymore, Billboard weighs a song’s radio play as 80 percent and its single sales as 20 percent to calculate the weekly Hot 100 rankings.
There are several other publications that serve the circus and carnival industry today. Circus news is called “Circus Report” and is published by Graphics 2000 out of Las Vegas every two weeks, There is a good monthly publication called “Carnival.” A lot of circus news is published bi monthly, in “White Tops” by the “Circus Fans Association of America” which Ward Hall is a district director. Ward highly recommends this publication and it is very reasonable. The dues are inexpensive and then there is no charge for the magazine. – John Robinson, Sideshow World

The following article by Natasha Emmous appeared in the August 1999 issue of Amusement Business magazine…

Sting’s ‘Brand New Day’ tour first in high-tech sponsorship…

Sting’s upcoming 15-month ‘Brand New Day’ tour will have a [...]]]>

Sting.com – Official Site and Official Fan Club for Sting news.interviews

Amusement Business
Sting’s ‘Brand New Day’ tour first in high-tech sponsorship…
Interview Date: August 1999

The following article by Natasha Emmous appeared in the August 1999 issue of Amusement Business magazine…

Sting’s ‘Brand New Day’ tour first in high-tech sponsorship…

Sting’s upcoming 15-month ‘Brand New Day’ tour will have a brand new type of presenting sponsor.

Houston-based Compaq Computer Corp. will integrate its technology into every aspect of the tour, which kicks off in Las Vegas in October, but the main focus of its support will be the upkeep of a Web site dedicated to the tour.

“We’re the first major technology company to be involved with a tour of this magnitude,” said Pam Coltharp, manager of global sponsorship and sports marketing for Compaq. Coltharp was a key player in putting this deal together.

This tour marks the first time a web site address has been incorporated into a tour name and logo. All of Compaq’s and Sting’s tour material will feature the Web site on the logo – sting.compaq.com – instead of touting that the tour is sponsored by Compaq. “All of the communications will drive fans to the web site,” Coltharp said.

Sting’s manager, Miles Copeland, owner of Firstars Artist Management, Sherman Oaks, Calif., said this subtle approach to corporate sponsorship was one of the main reasons Sting, former lead singer of the Police, chose Compaq. And “because we are very concerned about where technology is going, we wanted someone to [design] the web site and provide top-of-the-line technology,” Copeland said. Compaq plans to “showcase Sting as an artist and a businessman,” Coltharp said. “We’ll give him different vehicles to communicate with his fans.” The web site will feature regular updates on the tour, including digital photographs, a journal written by Sting and live chat sessions with the star. Sting and his support musicians and staff will be equipped with Compaq Armada notebook computers, Deskpro desktop computers and Professional Workstations equipped with sequencing and sampling software.

Compaq technology will be used to track ticket and CD sales throughout the tour and help in “all of the business decisions that go into planning a tour,” Coltharp said. Compaq chose to become involved in this tour because Sting represents their brand catchwords: human, gutsy pacesetter and agile, Coltharp said. Also, Sting’s 18 to 49-year-old fan demographic closely mirrors Compaq’s target customer, she said. Compaq is the second-largest computer company in the world.

The tour, which is scheduled to follow the release of Sting’s seventh solo album, ‘Brand New Day’ on Sept. 28, begins Oct. 14 with two nights at the Hard Rock Hotel, Las Vegas.

“Sting decided he wants to be more intimate and personal with his audience,” Copeland said. The largest venue he will play in the first leg of the tour is the 5,000-seat Universal Amphitheatre, Universal City Calif., Oct. 26-27, a show which will be broadcast world-wide. This intimacy is a great selling factor, Copeland said. The first 100 dates of the tour have been announced. After performing on a route criss-crossing the United States through the end of the year, Sting will head out of the country, playing Canada, France, Germany Italy, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Slovakia, Poland, Belgium, Holland, Ireland and then the United Kingdom, before returning to the States for a major shed tour next summer. Sting’s last tour was in 1996.

Copeland is resisting pressure to raise ticket prices, he said. “One thing we don’t want to do is gouge our audience.” Tickets range in price from $49.50 to $298. “If we were going for the money we’d play much bigger halls,” Copeland said. The only exception is a special New Year’s Eve show at the Jacob Javits Center, New York City where Sting will appear with a full lineup of other artists, including Andrea Bocelli, Aretha Franklin, Enrique Iglesias, Tom Jones and Chuck Berry. Those tickets are. selling for $1,000 a pop. The booking agents for this tour are Brent Smith and Ian Copeland with Frontier Booking International in Los Angeles; the publicist is Kathryn Shenker and Associates in New York City; Track Entertainment in New York City set up the Compaq sponsorship. Opening acts have not been set yet, Copeland said. Algerian musician Cheb Mami, who is featured on the album, is scheduled to open shows in California, New York and Paris. Merchandising is being co-ordinated by Tom Bennett.