Many children do not yet know what they want to be later, but for Pascal de Poorter (12) it is as ready as a knob. He is the youngest fairground entrepreneur in the Netherlands and this week he is at the Tilburg fair with his Aqua Blasta attraction. “I know people who are 30 years old and they also have this attraction. I am twelve and I also have one. That is special.”
Pascal grew up in the world of cotton candy, rotating attractions and sparkling lights. His parents also have a fair attraction and Pascal travels with them. “My two brothers both have an attraction so I also wanted one.”
He went looking for an attraction himself. “When my father was on vacation, I saw that the Aqua Blasta was for sale. I sent it to my father and I said we had to buy it.”
No sooner said than done. At the age of twelve, Pascal became the owner of his Aqua Blasta, an attraction where you can shoot with water on dolls and flames for two euros. “You don’t really have to be there. Only to turn on and off or if it is broken.”
“I have to pay my father’s ninety percent every fair.”
Pascal and his father have made agreements about the earnings model. “I have to repay ninety percent every fair and I can keep ten percent myself,” he says soberly.
Of course Pascal is also subject to compulsory education. “Children from the fair who go to high school often stay with grandparents so that they can go to school. I go with my parents. I get a laptop and I can follow the lessons online,” he explains.
“At school you don’t learn what you learn here at the fair.”
In the winter months the family stands with their caravan on a fixed home spot and then Pascal will go to school. “I don’t like that. At school you don’t learn what you learn here at the fair,” he says. “I learn more when I go with my father or brothers for a day. How to put the power on and how to make things. There is also my interest.”
Pascal’s older brothers are in a slightly different phase of life. The one is getting married and the other has just a son. “It is nice to stand next to each other at the fair as brothers, but sometimes I get a little tired of them,” laughs Pascal.
If you ask him what he would like if he was big later, he will know. “I would like to travel with the Turbo Polyp that is now at the fair in Uden. That is my biggest dream. How beautiful it is, the lights, the cosiness, how the attraction runs and moves. I think that is very beautiful!”