ASSOCIATION ASSOCIATION BUZZ
From The Desk of the President Greg Chiecko, OABA President
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any of us, members and board members alike, have been attending the numerous state and regional meetings across the
country. It seems we just get off the road and before you know it, it's off to the meetings. While it is time consuming, the time spent with our fair partners is beneficial to all involved. I applaud the efforts of our members making presentations about the OABA at many of these meetings. Personally, in January I was able to attend the Ohio Meeting and the Western Fairs Association meeting in Reno, NV. In Ohio I was able to partici- pate in two meetings discussing the challenges our industry faces and a great discussion about H-2B. At Western Fairs I made similar presentations and was also hon- ored to present Circle of Excellence Awards to the general as- sembly to Brown’s Amusements and Butler Amusements. It was fulfilling to present these awards and explain the efforts and achievement of these fine operators to such a large audience. For those of you who were not able see our OABA presenta- tions, I would like to explain to you what we are discussing at the meetings. Here’s a quick synopsis of what we are talking about: We hear the stories of some fair no longer being able to obtain a carnival. We hear about the labor shortage that results in less rides arriving on the fairgrounds. Let’s discuss what is going on.
The Outdoor Amusement Business Association (OABA) estimates that at the end of 2022 we have about 200 active carnival companies in the United States. That is down from around 400 in 2017, a 50 percent reduction in the past five years. The reasons for this dramatic drop are many and varied.
Among them are rising operating cost, lack of labor and a non- generational transformation.
The OABA has made presentations at the IAFE Convention and several state and regional meetings outlining the ex- penditures of a typical carnival. For every dollar taken in, the carnival expends the following: 10% on insurance, 20% on transportation and fuel, 25% on labor. That leaves 45% to pay the rent, cover overhead and administrative costs, new equipment investment and maintenance and, hopefully, a little profit. Obviously, this formula is not sustainable. We need to have serious discussions with our fair partners on how we can adjust the current model in order create a mutually beneficial working relationship in the future.
The inconsistent and random foreign guest worker labor force (H2B) plagues our industry every year. The amount of Department of Labor certificates for labor exceeds 225,000. This is the number of jobs available that United States work- ers don’t want. The 66,000, and in some cases, 120,000 visas allocated still fall short of the jobs by over 100,000. The result is a lottery system to allocate workers which usually takes place in late December or early January. If a carnival receives no workers, they can’t fulfill their contractual obligations that they might have held with a fair for decades. The carnival industry lives by the motto “the show must go on” and for the most part we have been able to uphold our obligations. However, the day may come, in the near future, that a fair will get the phone call telling them they won’t have a carnival this year. We continue to advocate in Washington, DC, to perma- nently fix this crisis, and we continue to head in the right direction, but we are not there yet. We, as an industry, are not Chicken Little crying “the sky is falling”; at least not yet. We, fairs and carnivals, must strat- egize and implement change to ensure the future of both of our industries.
6 OABA ShowTime Magazine | MARCH 2023
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