Almost all displays at the Ridge Meadows Home Show are either built on site or pre-built and put together on site.
However, one display, arrived on Tuesday, April 26, at the rear entrance of Golden Ears Winter Club.
The showcase for DMC Contracting came in a 6 metre long container weighing in excess of 10,000 pounds on the flatbed of a crane truck that had to be slowly manoeuvred through a back door of the arena.
It was a tight squeeze for the crane. The vertical rolling service door at the back of the rink that normally hosts the curling club during the winter months, was only about four metres high.
After taking the air out of the suspension system to lower the truck, the crane along with the flatbed and its cargo cleared the top of the door with only about eight centimetres to spare.
A relief for home show executive director Graham Vanstone, who watched anxiously as the truck slowly pulled up the ramp and through the door.
Come Friday, April 29, close to 300 exhibitor booths will be set up for the show explaining everything from home renovations, decoration, and landscaping. There will be booths with unique gadgets and household products, a cooking section and what’s new in health and beauty.
Upstairs at the rink will be the annual Psychic Fair.
Outside on Wednesday, employees of Shooting Star Amusements were setting up rides for the carnival and midway.
Ride operator Joseph Reine, along with Sabastian Russell, and a worker who wanted to go by the name “Cowboy”, were putting together the ride Zero Gravity – a ride where people stand in a big circle facing inward while the circle spins and slowly moves to a vertical position.
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Each sweep, or support bar for the cages, they estimated weighs about 113 kilograms.
The three heaviest thing on the ride, said Reine, are the sweeps, the cages, and the steps – which are made of cast iron.
With a good crew, he explained, the ride can be put together in around four hours.
They expected the full carnival to be set up by end of the day on Wednesday.
The Ridge Meadows Home Show takes place this weekend from 4-9 p.m. on Friday, April 29, from 10-8 p.m. on Saturday, April 30, and from 10-4 p.m. on Sunday, May 1, at Planet Ice, Golden Ears Winter Club, and the Albion Fairgrounds, along Jim Robson Way off Lougheed Highway.
Tickets for the show are $5 per person and $8 per family. The outdoor Family Fest is free admission.
For more information about the Ridge Meadows Home Show go to ridgemeadowshomeshow.com.
For more information about Shooting Star Amusements and ticket prices go to shootingstar.ca.
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