Amusement parks with a midway
A fixed park of rides and games that opens for a season or all year, usually with a midway of its own. Some host a fair's rides when the fair is on.
An amusement park is a fixed ground of rides, games and food that opens for a season or all year. Its ancestors are European pleasure gardens such as Copenhagen’s Tivoli, opened in 1843; the enclosed, pay-at-the-gate park began at Coney Island in 1895. Vancouver’s Playland traces to 1910.
What it is
Where a carnival travels, an amusement park stays: permanent rides, often a wooden coaster and a carousel, a midway of games and food, and a gate. Some sit on an exhibition ground and become part of the fair when it runs.
History, era by era
- 1843
- Georg Carstensen opened Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen on August 15, 1843, with royal permission, inspired by amusement gardens he had seen abroad.1
- 1895
- Paul Boyton opened Sea Lion Park at Coney Island on July 4, 1895, the island’s first enclosed amusement park, with a Shoot-the-Chutes and a looping coaster. It paved the way for Luna Park, Steeplechase and Dreamland.2
- 1910–1958
- Vancouver’s amusement park opened beside the first PNE in 1910, was renamed Happy Land in 1926, and moved to its present site as Playland in 1958.3
- 1936
- By 1936 a 1912 C.W. Parker carousel was turning at Happyland in Hastings Park, in a pavilion the Philadelphia Toboggan Company built in 1928.4
- 2010
- The ride maker Zamperla reopened Luna Park at Coney Island in 2010.5
The midway connection
An amusement park is a midway that never leaves. The PNE’s park has run beside the fair since its first year, and when the fair is on the two become one midway.3
Wherever people walk a row of booths, the midway is there in some form: the full kind, with rides, games of skill and food joints, or the quieter kind, with craft tables, home baking and a booth like ours. That walk, with family and friends and something to look at every few steps, is what this directory is about.
One fact worth knowing
- Hans Christian Andersen visited Tivoli and found inspiration there for his fairy tale The Nightingale.1
Questions people ask
What was the first amusement park?
Pleasure gardens such as Tivoli (1843) came first; Coney Island’s Sea Lion Park (1895) was the first enclosed park there to charge at the gate.12
How old is Playland in Vancouver?
Its park opened in 1910 beside the first PNE; it took the Playland name when it moved in 1958.3
Sources
- Tivoli Gardens: History of Tivoli Gardens: from 1843 to today. Read on · official
- Coney Island History Project: Paul Boyton. Read on · reference
- PNE: History and legacy. Read on · official
- Heritage Burnaby: C.W. Parker carousel collection description. Read on · reference
- Zamperla: Zamperla Group. Read on · official
Short listings from the census
Checked and sourced, but without a full page yet. Each one links to its row on its province or state page.
The Midway Mailbag
New fairs, festivals, midways and attractions as we add them to the directory. About twice a month in fair season, less in winter.
Running a fair, a booth or a fundraiser?
Bring the Machine to your event: sell printed reading tickets, or run the machine on a screen facing the crowd. Reading codes for booths and fundraisers.
All kinds of fairs · Midway Directory
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