I had a wonderful, excellent day in the company of some fine people at my friend Jim Zajicek’s Big Circus Sideshow when it appeared in Austin, TX at the Star Fair and Rodeo. Jim, a real showman with years in circus and sideshow allowed me the opportunity to ‘bally’ his first rate, real live midway sideshow. To ‘bally’ means to do an outside the tent performance, on the ‘ballystage’ to attract an audience. The word comes from the term “ballyhoo”.
Ballyhoo:
1 : a noisy attention-getting demonstration or talk 2 : flamboyant, exaggerated, or sensational promotion or publicity 3 : excited commotion
It was a lot of fun and a good learning experience.
Jim’s girlfriend Lori Ballard, a very fine professional photographer was there and got some of my favorite photographs of the bally and behind the scenes.