When your whole income is based around the year's annual show circuit, what do you do when everything is suddenly shut down due to a pandemic?
That was the situation Josh and Jade Evans found themselves in last year as coronavirus took hold and everything was cancelled.
The couple are usually on the road for most of the year, with two of their six kids in boarding school at Red Bend, Forbes, but with the shows cancelled, the kids came home and the whole family spent the year together at their home at Wallacia.
But they still had bills to pay, as well as money tied up in show rides that were then sitting idle.
Jade said to start with, they signed up to Airtasker, the Sydney-based Australian company which provides an online and mobile marketplace enabling users to outsource everyday tasks.
For three to four months Josh was travelling across Sydney doing jobs like mowing lawns, and this worked out alright for a while, but when they realised more big events were to be cancelled later in the year, they needed a longer term option.
"COVID-19 taught a lot of businesses to be innovative, even mowing lawns, it was just a way to pay the power bill," Jade said.
While Josh was doing his Airtask jobs, Jade decided to try her hand at making and selling gift packs, including themed packs for special dates like Mother's Day and Father's Day.
"We'd seen a couple of people were doing that so we thought we could do the same," she said.
"It was very fun actually. It made use of the skills we had and tied us over until we could start working again. And it helped us stay busy"
She said when they saw there wasn't going to be large events like the Royal Queensland Show or the Royal Melbourne Show in 2020, they had to come up with a new concept.
With 2020 shaping up to be a bleak year for all, their goal became not just about identifying new business opportunities, but to also put a smile on people's faces.
The idea of the Funfair was born, which is essentially the sideshows and rides being brought to country towns for a week or so to allow the locals to head along and have some fun, while businesses like the Evans' would also generate some return on their rides and food stalls.
"There was a lot of things to take into consideration, but we've been working with Service NSW on the crowds and rulings," she said.
They took the Funfair to towns such as Mudgee, Lithgow, Bathurst, Orange, Clarendon, Dapto, Milton, and Ullladulla, among others.
By running them across a whole week, they have been able to cap the number of people in attendance at any one time, also using by pre-booked tickets, but then spread the crowd out through the week, lowering the daily attendance but still getting good numbers through overall.
The Funfairs have been a success, and Jade said she expects they will continue to be run at different towns throughout the rest of the year.
As for Sydney Royal Easter Show, she said they were glad to be heading back - "it's the diamond in the crown", said Jade excitedly about the prospect of getting back down to Homebush this April.
"Sydney Show is instrumental for most NSW amusement operators, by being Australia's largets ticketed event. It showcases the best of the best rides, similar to having the best cattle or the best horses," Jade said.
"To be selected to operate at the show is an honour in itself.
"The Easter Show is as good as any event in the world and is really a world-class event."
The Evans family will have at Sydney Australia's only two-storey carousel, a family tea-cup ride, their Grandma's Kitchen food van, a caraousel cafe, a cotton candy ice creamery, an Outback Corn Shack, and their laughing clowns sideshow game.
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