Sigh! Read this article. This isn't the first year, this fair has had iguanas.
It's fun and games
Jeff Davis, 8, tries to dunk a clown at the Dump Bozo in the Water game Tuesday at the LaPorte County Fair. Photo/Sara Figiel
By Amanda Haverstick The News-Dispatch
Youth rate amusements
LaPORTE - It's a given anytime fairgoers enter the midway, they'll get tempted by the wares offered at carnival games.
The question is, which games are worth playing?
Three children from the Boys & Girls Club of Michigan City - Angela Hart, 13; Jeff Davis, 8; and Alex English, 13, - put LaPorte County Fair's carnival games to the test on Tuesday.
The first two stops were the Teddy Bear Game and Popping Balloons. The skill needed was a good eye for darts. For $2, a player usually can get three darts at one of these games. Prizes are guaranteed.
The dart games scored well with Angela.
"I think it was nice," she said. "It's easy to do, and you win a prize."
Alex and Jeff also liked the dart games, but said there could have been more of a challenge.
"It's all right," Alex said. "I think it just needed more of a challenge."
Jeff added, "I think it was easy, but just like he said, it needed more of a challenge."
Angela, Jeff and Alex were able to walk away from the dart games with an armload of prizes.
"It had a decent variety of prizes," Angela said. "It's not the same thing over and over again."
Another offering the boys found fun was a basketball game with large hoops and a net tied at the bottom. For $5, a player can get three balls.
"It was one of my favorites," Jeff said. "I love basketball, it's my favorite sport."
"It was easy," Alex said, adding basketball also is his favorite sport.
The group decided not to spend money on another basketball game where the hoops were the same size as the basketball.
Alex and Jeff decided their favorite game in the whole midway was the dunk tank: a staple of any carnival. LaPorte County Fair's dunk tank comes complete with a clown shouting rude remarks at fairgoers.
While neither of the boys could give the acid-tongued clown a bath, they did enjoy the game.
"I think it was fun," Jeff said after flinging six softballs at the target on the tank.
"He really got on my nerves," Alex said of the clown.
Other games proved not as fruitful in the prize department. One game, involving a toy shotgun and an arrangement of cups as the target, was more of a gamble.
"I didn't like it," Angela said. "You don't know what to aim at."
Prizes come in small, medium or large, but what a player gets depends on the cup he/she hits, and the varying size prizes are spread throughout the arrangement of cups.
Some games give away small pets such as gold fish, iguanas and hermit crabs if a player can toss a said number of ping-pong balls in a cup. A player can get six balls for $1 at some of the games, but to win, a player must have super aim, plus the right force behind the toss.
Angela decided to sit the game out, noting the ball toss was too difficult. Jeff and Alex, however, took their chances, but to no avail.
"I think it was really hard," Jeff said. "I think nobody can never get it."
"It's too hard," Alex said. "The balls are way too light."
Angela said she could not recommend Rollem Down to her friends. The game involves rolling balls into a numbered slot, but the player can only score an amount under 11 or more than 30 to win a prize.
"I didn't get the concept of the game," Angela said. "It was like you've got to know how to roll the ball and have it go into the right slot."
The group found the games fun, but said they would not regularly spend a lot of money on midway games.
"I come to ride the rides," Angela said. "I wouldn't come to the fair to spend money to play the games."
Prentiss Hervey, Boys & Girls Club youth empowerment coordinator, questioned if some of the games were explained properly to kids.
"My concern is with the younger kids," he said. "They're not explained properly."
From Hervey's observations, some of the prizes weren't worth the money spent, especially when $5 was slapped down for something small.
"Some of the prizes offered aren't worth it," he said.
Contact reporter Amanda Haverstick at ahaverstick@thenewsdispatch.com
