For Elwin Bell jnr, the Royal Canberra Show is the first stop in a year mostly spent on the road running amusements all across Australia.
It is hard work, always busy, but Mr Bell, born into the business, would not have it any other way.
"We've been here for a week before the show and the week of the show, so a lot goes into it," Mr Bell said.
"Once we get on site, we're sort of locked in here, like jail. We don't leave it until everything's right and the show's finished.
"It's a lot of work to put the sideshows together and get the finishing touches on everything and make sure everything's maintained and up to safety standards."
Mr Bell, 50, said it never got tiring to see everyone having a good time in sideshow alley and enjoying the rides at the show.
"Mate, it's the old-time favourites and the new and the bright, you know all the bright lights and most important thing is everyone's happy when they're in sideshow alley," he said.
Mr Bell said his favourite ride was the Cha Cha, which has been in the family since 1969.
He said its long history meant everyone had a connection.
"It's rode your grandmother, your grandfather, their father, their mother. Your brothers, your sisters, it rides everybody, so it's a very popular ride and it's the old-time favourite," he said.
Mr Bell said show people were a tight-knit community, part of the Showmen's Guild of Australasia, which was contracted to supply amusements to agricultural shows.
"We're no different to any small town. We've got our family in the business, we've got cousins, relations, best mates, best friends, you know, girlfriends, wives," he said.
In 1924, Mr Bell's grandfather, Roy Bell, established a boxing tent, which is still touring through the Northern Territory.
"We've been going nearly 100 years and we're going to keep going for another 100," Mr Bell said.
Royal National Capital Agricultural Society general manager Michael Kennedy said on Saturday afternoon crowd numbers were higher than at the same point last year. It is the second year of reduced ticket prices.
But, he said, drought had affected many of the show's usual agricultural exhibitors.
"We've got no merinos here this year. And I was talking to the woman who runs sheep and she said they just can't get the show teams ready," Mr Kennedy said.
"To get sheep ready for a show is not just give them a wash and bring them down. You've got to get them into condition, you've got to pick your best one. But they're really, really hard.
"To have no merino sheep at a show shows how hard it is."
He said in the coming years the show would serve as a marker for bushfire and drought recovery, with the effects on represented industries felt in different ways.
"I was talking with the head of woodchop today. He said, 'This year, we've got wood. But I don't know what's going to happen to the industry.'
"Forests have lost 70 per cent of their forests and he said, 'Rightfully so, we think it's going to lock them up for nobody. You've got to let them recover'," Mr Kennedy said.
"So woodchopping is going to really struggle finding wood. There's these sort of things that are going to affect in the future.
"But we just work with each challenge as it comes up, we just solve it."
Mr Kennedy said the show's organisers were already working on bringing show jumping back to the program and serving as a future host for a world championship meeting.
The show concludes on Sunday.
