Figure 1: Packed onto the escalators, we’re suspended in liminal space between the outside world and the fairground within

Crossing the threshold may be the final barrier of entry to the carnival that lies beyond, but we’ve already taken our first step into the liminal space that divides it from the outside; the neutral gap that Louis Marin describes separating the imaginary, utopically framed other world of the theme park from the quotidian rules (and sensations) of the everyday [3].

Reaching the lower floor, exiting the escalator, it takes me only a few steps and I’ve crossed over. The barely contained excitement of the crowd—the excitement I feel within myself—explodes like a firework into a riot of sensations.

The Midway

Clangs, bells, whistles, bloops, whoops, chasing lights that endlessly circle flashing marquees painted in neon, jewel-tones, and pastels colours; I have entered the midway, the arcade and FEC (family entertainment complex) [4] section of the trade show (Figure 2). The roar of race cars, gunfire, and electronic dance music climb over top of each other to be the strain that reaches my ears. Just as McLuhan illustrated the medium is the message by way of pure light [5], backlit signs, LCD screens, and seven-segment displays, though carrying information, pour raw light and colour into my eyes, drowning out any message beyond “try me”. The swirl of attention-grabbing sights and sounds threatens to overwhelm; to suck me down into an abyss of decision paralysis.

I’ve been to IAAPA Expo once before, in 2022, and that first time visiting I was unprepared for the chaos. After only half an hour on the floor I had to remove myself to the much quieter lobby to breathe, to think, and to collect myself in the face of unbridled amusement. However, last year I also learned a way to ground myself against the patter of this impossibly large carnival barker— by literally turning my attention to the ground.

Unlike many convention halls, IAAPA Expo carpets the aisles, providing a softer road across the floor, but what’s more is that each vendor also carpets their booth—some with firm, short pile designed to provide sure-footing at bowling alleys and roller rinks, others with cushy foam pads to go easy on the knees while running around (fig. 3). In one sector of the hall, rows and rows of vendors display springy inflatable bouncy castles, and in a few rare cases, the booth’s floor is made of rigid glass; enormous fields of screens to theme the very ground you walk on. By focusing my attention down to my feet, walking mindfully as I make a first pass of the convention hall, I’m able to keep my wits about me as I acclimatize to this theme park marketplace.

Despite my techniques for managing the experience of the show floor, these arcades nevertheless set the stage for the way immersive and themed attractions hijack the senses, forcing you to heed their call. Even if I close my eyes and plug my ears, subtler sensations crawl along the very surface of my body as mist from artificial waterfalls cools me, and gouts of pyrotechnic flame, each accompanied by the faintest click of a pilot light, blast me with heat. Fake snow, fog, and bubbles populate the air, hanging weightlessly far longer than any sound would, and creating tangible fields of small prickling sensations as the fleck or foam settles on my skin. Over the course of the day, a thin screen of haze comes to settle over corners of the hall (Figure 4), bringing with it the smell of theatrical fog and a smorgasbord of engineered scenting technology to join the pervasive smell of millions of freshly printed promotional pamphlets and, as lunch time approaches, freshly baked food.

The Food Court

A trip to the fair is virtually synonymous with certain smells and tastes: popcorn, soft pretzels, fried dough, and cotton candy, but at IAAPA Expo, a myriad of other concessions are sold across the floor. Some of these foods, like ice cream and slushies are accompanied by a pronounced cold that threatens a brain freeze if eaten too quickly. Others, like cheese-coated popcorn or gummy bears, have distinctive chewy textures I feel in my teeth and jaw. At a themed convention like IAAPA Expo, even the presentation of toppings becomes a carefully contrived experience, as evidenced by squeezing the firm, rubbery udder of the unsettlingly named Condiment Cow (Figure 5).

Far from being a respite from the sensory overload of the day, mealtime becomes yet another vector for perceptual hijacking. Locked in a battle of sweetness, sugar is king, rivalled only by the gimmicky challenge of “can-you-take-it?” sour, tart, and spice. The nostalgia of popcorn and novelty of freeze dried ice cream entreats me, demanding I make concessions to the concessionaires, or else suffer the pangs of a longing stomach and watering mouth. But, if I acquiesce to the food court’s demands, I risk an even worse fate—the stomach-churning queasiness brought on by thrill rides.

The Main Attractions

It would be tempting to assume that, as a largely indoor assembly, IAAPA Expo surely cannot host any actual amusement park rides, however this assumption would be sorely mistaken. Drop towers, tilt-a-whirls, motion simulators, and even small roller coasters dominate the show floor landscape (Figure 6), stretching high above even some of the multi-story offices the larger firms build on the property for the week. Not only are these grand machines on display, but at the mere cost of queuing a short time, you too, can experience their kinaesthetic thrills and vestibular spills. Spinning, flying, bouncing, and a whole host of omni-directional, high-speed motion qualify these structures as complex feeling machines, playing the body like an instrument as it hurls it around through space [6]. Combined with emerging technology integrating audiovisual VR headsets into these rides, the perceptual apparatus of the amusement park becomes near-total; if not a virtual reality, then at least a virtual sensorium, constructed in a lab by engineers and designers.

Interestingly, even for those rides too large or unwieldy to build inside the convention hall, tabletop miniatures serve as perceptual aids to the discerning client. Though these may seem little more than delightful toys to many observers, to the industry professional, these models are legible, not only as visible objects, but as sequences of established twists and turns. Through the sensory imagination, with the aid of these spatial “scripts”, designers can sense through a given ride configuration. This is further attested to by the number of models that are modular; reconfigurable to explore different combinations of a vendor’s products into a cohesive whole (Figure 7). It’s important to remember that although this show is open to the public, and assails the senses as a park would address a guest, this is all in service of convincing the client park operator to buy the product for resale to a public audience. The experience of IAAPA Expo is that of the facilities middleman, shopping along the grand mall of attractionary products.

Though malls and amusement parks are no stranger to each other—the West Edmonton Mall and Mall of America each iconic for currently encompassing Galaxyland and Nickelodeon Universe respectively—and their affective approaches to commercialism share common threads [7], it’s rare to witness the two forms married so closely into a mall of attractions rather than simply a mall containing attractions. In service of driving business, the exhibits at IAAPA Expo are therefore manifold in their address. The vendor addresses the park operator, through the operator’s desire to address the guest. Sensoria become superimposed in sequence as configurations of what’s sought, received, prioritized, and ignored becomes filtered through the various social relationships of the meta-medium. Just as Alexander Geppert observes of the closely related World’s Fair genre, the amusement park is a mutual construction by myriad stakeholders, from initiators, organizers, and employees, to critics and the public at large [8]. Though sensation is handed down from the top, it responds, as all business must, to the dreams and desires from below.

The Nighttime Spectacular

Late in the day, after much excitement and the emotional and physical roller coasters it brings, I seek out quieter corners of the floor, popping into tents in hopes that the more enclosed spaces will prove, if not less demanding, at least less at odds with themselves. Though I do find greater seclusion, I’m nevertheless met by the continued, relentless play upon my senses.

Darkness is only permitted on the show floor where it serves to highlight nighttime attractions; jack-o-lanterns for the Halloween season, UV light reactive carpeting, and illuminated fountain shows (fig. 8). Standing in a darkened pavilion, watching colourful jets of water dance back-and-forth between basins, I’m left to contemplate the expo. It’s a quiet contemplation—nothing can interrupt my thoughts in here, but the gentle echoes of splashing—and yet the events of the day remain elusive. Though the sensations can be itemized, they are all, in aggregate, so large and forceful in how they wash through and over you, that conveying it all to someone else feels impossible. There is no way to reduce this all to words, no more so than I could compress all the senses of the day into this small fountain show, contained within a tent.

Concluding Reflections in the Hall of Mirrors

During the course of the day, I stepped into a mirror maze and found myself confronted by a disconcerting sight. It was myself, at first as I would expect, face-to-face with my reflection, but then reflected infinitely onward and from every angle. This perspective—at once familiar and diversely alien—felt like an apt expression for my experience of IAAPA Expo. The Expo is many things to many people. I briefly overheard someone tell their friend as they walked past, “you can come here and buy cups, or a twenty-million-dollar ride.” To some, it is a lifestyle of pleasure- and thrill-seeking, to others a trade show, and yet further to some the most profitable fiscal quarter of their year. However, though I’m left with many impressions of how others would like me to feel—the endless third-person counter-reflections in the mirror hall—I’ve still only ever felt precisely what I was feeling with my own body, here before the mirror in the first-person flesh. No matter how strongly the arcades hijack my senses, or the concessions draw me in, or the complex mechanical rides throw me through the air, the stimuli are all filtered through your own body, and thus my own body’s long experience with these same stimuli. Where does the contrivance of capitalism end and my own enjoyment begin? If I could draw such a boundary, would it even mean anything? Even if the way I sense is being manipulated, does that invalidate the way I feel?

Footnotes

[1] “Rope drop” is a term often used in theme park fan culture to refer to the moment a park is opened first-thing in the morning. Guests will often arrive ahead of schedule so that they can be one of the first to enter the park at this time.

[2] IAAPA. “Trade Show Floor.” International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions. https://www.iaapa.org/expos/iaapa-expo/trade-show-floor.

[3] Louis Marin, Utopics: Spatial Play, trans. Robert A. Vollrath (London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, 1984), 241-242.

[4] “Family entertainment complex” is an umbrella term used to denote mid-size storefronts containing one of several family-oriented amusement activities. Common activities include arcades, laser tag, roller rinks, bowling, indoor jungle gyms, and escape rooms.

[5] Marshall McLuhan. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. 1st MIT Press ed. (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1994), 8.

[6] Scott A. Lukas. Theme Park. 1. publ. Objekt. (London: Reaktion Books, 2008), 97.

[7] Margaret Crawford, “The World in a Shopping Mall,” in Variations on a theme park: the new American city and the end of public space, ed. Michael Sorkin (New York: Hill and Wang, 1992), 3-4.

[8] Alexander Geppert, Fleeting Cities: Imperial Expositions in Fin-de-Siècle Europe (London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2010), 5-6.