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Actually I was never much of a carnival fan, and thus I have only been to maybe about a half dozen or so in my life-time, and that mostly to ride the Ferris Wheel. Usually these small travelling carnivals, that hopped from town to town, in the US Midwest summer months, typically had a few rides -- like a Ferris Wheel, a carousel, sometimes whip cars, maybe a miniature train ride, or one of those rotors where seats were hung from a big horizontal wheel that would revolve and tilt this way and that causing the rider to fly outward. And each of these rides would have the accompanying polka-like circus music and lights like Las Vegas.
There might also be a few tent shows with pitch men standing outside to draw in the crowds, like hustlers in front of topless dance joints. "Come on in and see" -- the Bearded Lady, the 500 Pound Man, the 3 Headed Snake or the Naked Lady. And there may have been a fortune telling tent as well. There were the concessions scattered around, in which was sold cotton candy, hot dogs and hamburgers, french fries, popcorn, beer, soda, coffee, deep-fry, peanuts, pretzels, pizza, snow cones or ice cream as some of the multitudinous offerings of appetence. And then there were the games -- a canvas kiosk alley of sharpies, crying the whiles of a cornucopia of a wealth of bric-a-brac prizes. These games were things like throwing off-weighted darts at balloons, weightless imitation base balls at lead bottles, tossing nickels, dimes and quarters onto elevated stemmed glass candy dishes, plastic or wood rings over bottle necks. There may have been a dunk tank. And there was the ever present marksmen stands with slant shot bb guns.
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