The travelling showmen’s publication World’s Fair has gone into administration. The publication was the original source of coin machine newspaper Coin Slot, which has since changed ownership.
World's Fair was founded 115 years ago as a means for travelling showmen to communicate and to pass on news about their families and businesses. It was always based in Oldham, Lancashire, and at its height in the 1960s had a circulation of over 27,000 copies each week.
Over the years it branched out into sub-publications such as The Market Trader, which dealt with warehouses that sold the prizes used by travelling showmen for their stalls. Coin Slot came along in the 1960s as many travellers "settled down" at seaside resorts to run arcades, yet they still felt part of the same community and retained their connections with it. Coin Slot was subsequently sold to Bacta, the trade association, and from there it was acquired by another publisher.
WF had many other connected sidelines, including travelling circuses, magic and wizardry, traction engines and theme parks.
The company had contracted as the industry it served contracted. InterGame understands that one of the primary factors in the failure of WF was technology. The introduction of mobile telephones and subsequently social media weakened the publication’s position.
Latterly it was controlled by Paul and Lynne Whatmore, part of the family that originally founded the publication in 1904. The company operated out of offices in Hollinwood, Oldham. Lynn Whatmore can be contacted on [email protected]
