In an era of multimillion-dollar amusement parks, a low-tech slice of yesteryear perseveres the good old traveling carnival.
Hundreds of rickety, family-owned carnivals continue to traverse the nation’s highways, setting up in cities large and small, where they operate for three or four days before packing up and rolling to their next destination.
And when it comes time to replace a funhouse, mirror maze, food concession trailer or ticket booth, the carnies head straight to Owen Trailers Inc. in Baldwin Park.
Owen Trailers has been manufacturing such attractions for two decades whether it’s old-fashioned walk-through funhouses, like the spooky, Bavarian-themed “Cuckoo Haus,” with shuffling floors, spiral slides, conveyer belts and rotating barrels; or two-story mirror mazes like “Crystal Lil’s,” which features hundreds of glass panels and more than 2,000 flashing lights.
The attractions, which cost between $150,000 and $400,000 each, have become a staple on the nation’s carnival circuit.
“We’re considered the Cadillac of this kind of equipment,” boasts company President Ross Owen, standing beside an unfinished, multi-story frame of a mirror maze (or “glass house” in industry parlance) that the company is building for an Austin, Texas-based carnival operator.
It’s no idle boast. Owen Trailers is one of a handful of U.S. companies still making such amusements. And demand has led to a steady climb in sales for the 25-employee shop, with revenues going from $1.3 million in 1993 to about $2 million this year. Owen says.
“Ross does excellent work,” says Ralph Christensen, president of Escondido-based Christensen Amusements, a 35-year veteran of the industry who owns a glass house and several food trailers made by Owen. “He is on the cutting edge.”
Far from the nation’s big cities, the old-fashioned American carnival continues to prosper especially in the South and Midwest, where consumers aren’t quite so jaded as they are in L.A., according to Owen.
“When you’re in Fargo, North Dakota and the carnival comes to town, you are there, because there is nothing to do in Fargo, or within 100 miles of Fargo. And there are a thousand places like that,” says the 51-year-old Southern California native.
Most of the carnivals are small, family-owned operations, with perhaps 15 or 20 rides, which they haul along the nation’s interstates to county fairs, rodeos, church fund-raisers, chamber of commerce events, community fairs and local parades.
Properly run, a small carnival easily can generate more than $5 million in annual revenues, says Bob Johnson, executive director of Outdoor Amusement Business Association, a Minneapolis-based trade group that represents 500 carnival operators nationwide
The industry also is fiercely competitive which has sparked a demand for attractions that not only are appealing to visitors, but can be set up and dismantled with a minimum of labor.
That’s where Owen Trailers comes in. The company offers as many as 14 different gimmicks, such as shifting floors or makeshift spooks jumping from out of the darkness, powered by a system of hydraulics and pneumatics, as opposed to the simple trip-wire systems employed by most manufacturers.
Perhaps more important, a funhouse that’s 70 feet long and 27 feet high when fully assembled can fold to a more manageable 50 feet long and 13 feet high in less than two hours when it’s time to move to the next stop.
“They’re looking for stuff that goes up and down easily,” says Owen. “These guys do not buy things on a whim.”
It takes eight to nine weeks to build a funhouse or glass house. The company sells about 10 big-ticket items a year, keeping busy between the big jobs by repairing attractions and building smaller, less-sophisticated items, such as food trailers, ticket booths and offices.
Like many in the carnival business, Owen Trailers has been owned by the same family for multiple generations. The firm was founded in 1946 by Ross’ father, Loren Owen, who started out buying trailers wholesale and reselling them to decommissioned soldiers looking for a cheap place to live in Southern California. Eventually, the company began manufacturing the trailers itself, finding a niche in making food-concession trailers, offices and ticket boxes for carnivals nationwide.
When Ross took over in 1978, he pushed the business in a different direction, building funhouses and mirror mazes.
“I find it more interesting, more challenging,” he says. “I was getting bored just building food trailers.”
So is there going to be a third generation of Owens in the carnival business? Owen’s two sons are attending college and, while they often help out in the shop during summer vacations, they haven’t decided on a post-college path yet.
“It depends on what they want to do,” Owen says. “It wouldn’t bother me if they did something else, but I’d hate to see 50 years of work go to someone else.”
Owen Trailers Inc.
Year Founded: 1946
Core Business: Building funhouses, mirror mazes and other facilities for traveling carnivals.
Revenues in 1993: $1.3 million
Revenues in 1998 (projected): $2 million
Employees in 1993: 18
Employees in 1998: 25
Goal: “To get the business down to a science, so I can start working 40 hours a week instead of 70.”
Driving Force: Demand for high-quality carnival equipment
