Welcome to the Show! Don’t forget your Show Bag!

In an earlier post I shared 5 Observations After A Month in Australia.  The last of those observations was that the Australians sure know how to do a state fair.  Time to elaborate a little bit.  Of course, if you were to Google the term “Australian Show” right now, you would get a very uncharacteristic series of stories about an the American singer Harry Connick, Jr. being embarrassed by a recent comedy skit on the Australian TV Show Hey Hey It’s Saturday. 

And, althought I have been very much removed from the media mainstream while being down under…I understand via some Facebook friends that this has stirred a little bit of controversy in the US.  What I am most interested in will be how Connick responds to his next Australian televised public appearance which will be on Australian Idol, which has been promoting him since I arrived here as the guest judge on their “big band night.”  I am finding it hard to predict whether discussing it on-air will be something that is off limits or not.  More about that later I suppose.

Update on Oct. 13–It turns out the blackface fiasco DID get a mention in the Sunday night Australia Idol show, and I was moderately surprised that it was.  Connick was having a discussion with regular AI judge Ian “Dicko” Dickson about one of the contestants.  Connick said, “Haven’t you ever experienced something that made you uncomfortable, but you just smiled at it?”  Dicko said “Yeah, last week on Hey, Hey It’s Saturday!“  A cut back to Connick showed he was not very happy with the remark, but didn’t say anything in response.

But for now, don’t get distracted by what the REAL term “Australian Show” means.  A show is like a fair, where livestock, equipment, sports, etc. is showcased.  They are an annual event in most aggricultural towns in Australia, lasting a couple of days.  But then there are ROYAL SHOWS…which are the equivalent to state fairs…held in capital citeis lasting a couple of weeks.  Now, every US state I’ve lived in (all four of them) has a state fair.  And, for full disclosure, I’ve never been to one.  But, I must say that I have also never noticed a sense of state pride in comparing one to another like I experienced here.  Perhaps because there are only a handful of them in Australia (Wikipedia lists only 12) it seems to be another way that Aussies can brag on the particular territory they are from.  The lab I’m working in at Murdoch University contains people from all over the country and when I told them I had been to the Perth Royal Show and had a great time, they were sure to tell me how the Perth Show was great…but nothing beat the Melbourne Show…or the Show in Adelaide …or of course the biggie that happens around Easter in Sydney.  Lots of pride surrounding the shows.

We went to the Perth Royal Show on a Saturday.  The weather was gorgeous and we had strategically chosen  this day because it was the same day as the AFL finals and we were hoping that many of the footy fans would be staying home. 

Our day officially started at the Freo train station

Trans Perth, the public transit system, had a deal that allowed us to all get to the showgrounds for $8.80 which was not only a bargain but allowed us to take the train for the first time.

Twenty mintues later we were there, and went on a focused search for the show bags that the kids had decided they wanted.  Show bags are very much a big part of the Royal Show experience, and a marketing opportunity that I am quite surprised hasn’t taken off in the States.  They are, essentially, sample bags of branded products sold at a discounted price.  (In fact, later that weekend I was talking to someone from the generation before me who said that the show bags used to just be given out for FREE!)  And the topic of the show bags become almost as big as anything else associated with the show.  I mean, kids talk about which ones they want at school.  TV news stations do stories about the “hot” show bags of the year.  And the Perth Royal Show website even allowed you to put in a list of the show bags you wanted to find and it would provide you a map of what showbag “alley” they were in.  And trust me, a map would certainly help, because there are rows and rows of these concesssions.  We, of course, were unable to print our bag-map so we had to walk around a lot to find the one we were after…we were not going home without a Bakugon Show Bag for my son!  But take a look at examples of these things:

Kids lining up to look at some show bags

Some showbags with brands I recognize!

When I think of all the radio station stickers I've handed out at fairs...

We bought one from the Perth Mint...which included a coupon for admission

The most important thing of the whole day!

After the show bags were scouted and purchased (my daughter decided on a Super Mario one, which she was quite happy with), we spent the rest of the day just soaking in the fun.  There was a juggler who put on a street performance that I found really impressive–and the jokes were just at my level of corny-ness. I believe I was the only one who laughed at them. 

Flaming Torch Juggling...Five Feet in the Air!

And we were allowed to pack a lunch, which we ate on the lawn while watching  the parade of winning livestock along with a really entertaining performance by a group of motorcycle jumpers!

Fantastically beautiful & powerful horses

A cavalcade of cows

And the day ended with us taking a sky-tram ride over the top of the entire showgrounds.  There we saw lots of rides and typical carnival stuff.  Luckily, both my kids are still of an age where the rides look more scary than enticing to them (can’t say I ever hope that they grow out of that stage!).

The Perth Royal Show from the Air

Rides I like much better from this angle

It was, for me, a pretty unforgettable day and a real learning experience about a big annual part of Australian culture.

Tagged as: Adventure, Advertising, Australia