Glasgow’s Irn Bru Carnival is set to return for its 104th year

We speak to Margaret who has worked on the annual Irn Bru Carnival for 35 years to find out her story and involvement.

Transcript

00:00I started working with this company back in 1990, so come February I'll have been here 35 years.

00:08This is also our 104th birthday of Carnival, so it's an institution, it's an old event

00:16and then sometimes when I realise that I've kind of worked on a third of it, it makes me feel really old.

00:22So I started with the company back in 1990 as a kind of admin reception and then moved into the Ops Department

00:31and then in 2002 I sort of took over the management of Carnival, so I've been doing this side of it for quite a long time.

00:38My role is to choose the equipment, choose the content for the event, the layout of the event,

00:47so where everything sits on the floor in the halls of the SEC and all of that obviously involves a lot of communication with the showmen

00:57that bring all the rides along.

00:59Glasgow Corporation, they started the event back in 1924 in the Kelvin Hall and it was for something,

01:09it was an event to give the people of Glasgow something to do over the Christmas and New Year holidays

01:15because obviously back then there wasn't much else going on.

01:19Carnival ceased for a couple of years during the war and then moved here in 1985 to the SEC.

01:27So the SEC halls, in Hall 4 and Hall 5, there's a part of the hall where the roof goes up, it's elevated, it's higher,

01:35so that was built with Carnival coming here, that was all designed for Carnival coming to the SEC.

01:41We believe that we've probably got a lot of the best selection of equipment that's out there,

01:47so if you're looking for a dodgem, the chances are we've probably got the best one that's available in the UK,

01:53same with the Waltzar, the Frog, so we're not just looking at the rides,

01:58it's just as important who owns it and who operates it,

02:03so all of that's really important when it comes to selecting the equipment and bringing it here.