Quebec’s travelling carnivals, a summer staple for generations, continue to captivate

People wander around the Fun Show Amusement, a travelling carnival, in Laval, Que., on Wednesday, July 9, 2025. (The Canadian Press/Christinne)

Bright colourful rides, skill-testing games with a stuffed animal prize, and copious amounts of sticky cotton candy are all hallmarks of the travelling carnival circuit, and are deeply rooted in the imagination of Quebecers who’ve been able to experience them.

The travelling midways, which temporarily set up shop in shopping centre parking lots or wherever else they can find space, have been part of the Quebec landscape for decades.

The people who bring on the fun say they intend to be here for years to come.

“We never end up in the red, business is going well,” says Véronique Vallée, co-owner of Beauce Carnaval, the oldest of two such companies.

Some seasons — like this year with a cold and rainy April and May — are more difficult than others, she said.

“We lost nine Saturdays at the beginning of the year,” she said. “That hurts.

“But when people see that the weather will be nice on Friday or Sunday, they adjust.”

She and her two brothers are the third generation to operate the ferris wheels of Beauce Carnaval, founded in 1953 by their grandfather, Florian.

The company operates two units that travel each year from the Côte-Nord to Abitibi, Outaouais, Montérégie, Estrie, and the Lower St-Lawrence region — passing through their home base of the Beauce, south of Quebec City, and everywhere in between.

The newer company, Fun Show, also has two units on the road, but does not venture as far. Still, it covers a vast territory that extends from the Laurentians to the Eastern Townships to the capital region, passing through Central Quebec.

Founded 19 years ago, Fun Show is a financially demanding business, says Sylvie Larivière, sister and right-hand woman to founder Mario Larivière.

“People have no idea about the costs of operation, repairs, maintenance and moving,” she said. “We are 100 per cent self-sufficient: we provide our own electricity with generators, and diesel is a fortune.”

There are other expenses — renting a vast lot, paying employees, housing them and insurance. It requires a solid financial footing. The weather was a problem to begin the season, but the company has since recovered, she said.

The company has only lost money in one year in its almost 20-year history.

Mario Larivière built Fun Show from the ground up, his sister said.

“He bought a few used rides, an investor who was kind enough to help him financed him and he worked hard,” she said. ”He was already good at mechanics and construction (and) the old rides were mechanical.

“But today, there are a lot of electronics, and it’s not the mechanics that break anymore; it’s always the electronics.”

Véronique Vallée and her two brothers essentially grew up at the fair.

“When we finished school, we would come and spend our summers at the carnival,” Vallée said. “My two brothers and I all studied in other fields and all three of us returned to the family business.”

Both Fun Show and Beauce Carnaval employ around 100 people, a figure that can increase, as can the number of rides at major agricultural fairs if customer activity becomes more intense.

It’s a tough but rewarding job, Vallée said.

“It’s difficult to recruit because people are on the road for six months. They don’t see their families, they don’t stay at home, they don’t have Saturdays and Sundays off to go to the beach,” Vallée said.

“That’s what characterizes this job: to go away, to be a vagabond for six months.”

Since 2018, Beauce Carnaval has employed 34 seasonal workers from Mexico who’ve helped recruit each other over time.

“They have a great mutual support between them. It’s really a great team and when they’re here, they spread that to others,” Vallée said.

On the Fun Show side, unit manager René Caron said recruiting isn’t too hard as veterans return year after year and bring their friends with them.

What attracts them, he said, is the feeling of having found a family.

“Many don’t have a family, many don’t have a fixed home. So they come here for the summer and the family atmosphere,” Caron said. “They leave in the fall, but sometimes they go and live together in pairs or threes. They come here to build bonds.”

Workers say they are passionate about carnival living. In particular, all point to the excited, happy faces of youth getting to partake as a major plus.

Robert Gobeil and Sylvain Roy met at the Beauce Carnaval site in Victoriaville, Que.

“We love everything in general,” said Gobeil about his job.

“We’re here to entertain people, what’s better than entertaining people? I chose this job because we wanted to be able to work all summer and be down south in the winter.”

Gobeil heads south in his motorhome in October and returns in April. He briefly retired after the COVID-19 pandemic, but was drawn back to carnival life.

Sylvain Roy, on the other hand, loves winter and snowmobiling during the off-season. He, too, left the showman’s life in 2009, but soon came back.

“When it’s in your blood, you come back,” Roy said. “I love it: Beauce Carnival is a family. We’re a family at home, but when we’re here, we have a family here too.”

By Pierre Saint-Arnaud

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 2, 2025.