Joyce's Column: September

Come next month we will be into the new season of exhibitions, kicking off with ACOS at the ILEC Centre (within the Ibis Hotel), Earls Court, London organised by Karen Cooke of Swan Events. This is a nice easy and friendly exhibition to both exhibit at and visit and a good one to start the exhibition season. This exhibition has grown and gone from strength to strength since formed just a few years ago, and Karen and her team should be congratulated on the excellent organising of it. So, if you have not visited it before why not give it a try and enjoy both the business and social side. I am very pleased to say that I have managed to get a couple of my Irish companions and friends Andy Thompson and Philip Doherty to give it a try this year, and I don’t think they will be disappointed.

Good to see that World of Rides are still continuing to thrive, and have now been forced in 2024 to increase production of both tokens and token coin-mechanisms due to the demand from UK operators. Their Customer Support Manager Andrew Robinson feels that since cashless payments increased much of the demand is due to this, he says that unlike playing an amusement machine where most players still like to insert cash and gets their winnings in cash, kiddie rides and machines as such are using tokens more, which has some benefits for the operator. If a token is used to operate kiddie rides etc then any unused tokens held by customers at the end of the day usually ensures that they will come back the following day to use their tokens with the same operator thus stopping them going to any competitors.

Often asked what the life span of a token is Andrew says this is difficult to answer as some of the very first ones they produced over 50 years ago are still being used by some operators, so it’s a case of ‘how long is a piece of string’!

GeWeTe’s Robert Clarke enjoys an annual lads’ weekend away and after much deliberation between them all it was decided they should go to Benidorm, as none of them had ever been there before. In preparation for the trip Robert and his partner (who was not going on the trip by the way) Manda had been watching old episodes of the comedy series Benidorm on the TV, and in one episode it featured ‘Pride Week’ and Manda jokingly said it would be funny if the lads were there that same week as ‘Pride’ and guess what their trip did coincide with the ‘Pride Week.’

The lads I am sure got a more colourful, hectic and rich few days than they at first anticipated when they booked their trip, and the culmination of ‘Pride Week’ was a huge party on Levante Beach right outside their apartment. So, no early nights for the lads then, despite Robert telling me that men of a certain age need to be in bed by 10pm! The photos show he enjoyed himself OK and just in case you are wondering Robert is the one in the one in the orange t-shirt!

I had a lovely experience recently I went on a day trip to Llangollen, North Wales and enjoyed a journey on the canal on a horse-drawn barge. It was so lovely and serene, and all was going well until it came for the time of the return journey and the horse had to be transferred to the other end of the barge to pull it. The horse had other ideas, he was determined not to move until he had finished enjoying his eating of the grass and leaves etc and no matter how much the handler tried! So, by the time we moved again we were close on 30 minutes getting back to base.  To be fair to the barge company they offered us some money back for what they called the inconvenience but none of us took it, as we looked on it as an experience rather than an inconvenience.

Now here is a blast from the past, I was clearing out the loft recently and I came across a carrier bag which contained a shirt, and both the carrier bag and shirt were from the Cosmic Video Amusements days. The staff at Cosmic Video Amusements used to wear these lovely pink shirts at exhibitions and I remember admiring them and they kindly sent me one in the post. Alas, Cosmic Video Amusements as a company was owned by Terry Farr is no longer in existence, but I am pleased to say that Terry is still very much with us.

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25 September 2024

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