photo: Michael Bednar
Bingo's big show
Still going strong at 83, the patriarch of the Hauser family and founder of West Coast Amusements spreads joy across British Columbia each summer with his travelling carnival.
The hydraulic platform creeps upward, past the Yo Yo swings and the highest buckets of the Ferris wheel. I glance at Irvin “Bingo” Hauser, 83, founder of West Coast Amusements, as he takes in this bird’s-eye view of his carnival midway in Port Alberni, surrounded by peaks of the Vancouver Island Ranges. I should ask what he’s thinking, but I’m finding it hard to conduct an interview with my heart in my throat.
We plummet 30 metres, most of us screaming the entire way down. It’s music to the ears of a lifelong carnie.
“How did you like that?” asks Bingo, as the padded safety harness of the Super Shot unlocks, and teenagers beeline back to the line-up for a second round of punishment.
“Awesome. Terrifying. Never again!” I stutter. The plunge seems to have loosened my vocal chords. Bingo, though, appears unshaken. This is child’s play for the octogenarian, a former lion tamer who stands 1.6 metres tall (five feet, four inches) and who has, over the past 60-odd years, grown what began as a small circus sideshow into a multi-million-dollar travelling carnival business.
Read more in the current issue of British Columbia Magazine
