Okay I've been looking into the history of the national independent concessionaires association inc (NICA) by first looking into the background to the whole concept of fairs (fayres; faires) and then I started looking into the people who started the organisation which is taking me into a whole rabbit hole. So, I'm just posting this bit of history first and then I'll get to the present day rabbit hole.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traveling_carnival

A traveling carnival (US English), usually simply called a carnival, or travelling funfair is an amusement show that may be made up of amusement rides, food vendors, merchandise vendors, games of chance and skill, thrill acts, and animal acts. A traveling carnival is not set up at a permanent location, like an amusement park or funfair, but is moved from place to place. Its roots are similar to the 19th century circus with both being set up in open fields near or in town and moving to a new location after a period of time. In fact, many carnivals have circuses while others have a clown asthetic in their decor. [1][2] Unlike traditional carnival celebrations, the North American traveling carnival is not tied to a religious observance.

In 1893, the Chicago's World's Columbian Exposition (also called the Chicago World's Fair) was the catalyst for the development of the traveling carnival.

Modern traveling carnivals usually make contracts with local governments in order to play both state and county fairs, as well as smaller venues (such as store parking lots, church bazaars, volunteer fire department fund raisers, and civic celebrations).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World%27s_Columbian_Exposition

The World's Columbian Exposition was the first world's fair with an area for amusements that was strictly separated from the exhibition halls... This area, developed by a young music promoter, Sol Bloom, concentrated on Midway Plaisance ...It included carnival rides, among them the original Ferris Wheel, built by George Washington Gale Ferris Jr.

Sol Bloom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sol_Bloom

Sol Bloom (March 9, 1870 – March 7, 1949) was an Orthodox Jewish[2] American politician from New York who began his career as an entertainment impresario and sheet music publisher in Chicago. He served fourteen terms in the United States House of Representatives from the West Side of Manhattan, from 1923 until his death in 1949...

Bloom established his reputation in 1893 at the age of 23 while developing the mile-long Midway Plaisance at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The Midway Plaisance offered enticing games and exhibitions presented by private vendors, removed from the more conservative Beaux-Arts splendor of the official exposition and arranged around its "Court of Honor". After initially entrusting the midway to a Harvard anthropology professor, the committee turned to Bloom, whose "Midway" was so successful that the term resided henceforth in the American lexicon. At the "Street in Cairo", the North African belly dance was reinvented as the "hootchy-kootchy dance" to a tune made up by Bloom, "The Streets of Cairo, or the Poor Little Country Maid", whose century-old lyrics had traditionally been sung by young boys: "O they don't wear pants/on the sunny side of France"; "There's a place in France/where the women wear no pants"; "...where the naked ladies dance", etc. Bloom did not copyright the tune, which he'd conceived on a piano at the Press Club of Chicago. Bloom also published and promoted “Coon, Coon, Coon”, one of the most famous entries in the coon song genre.

http://www.carnaval.com/malta/carnival/

"Carnival is the oldest festival in the world. Some authors even suggest it originated around 10,000 BC, from the seasonal farming rituals of the ancient peoples. They would greet the return of the spring solstice with singing and dancing. At the festivals to the Egyptian goddess Isis and the bull Apis, and the Teuton goddess Herta, there were already signs of such behaviour. These practices were reinforced in the Roman and Greek bacchanalia, saturnalia and lupercalia feasts."