Grown-ups get to have as much fun as kids at Olcott Beach Carousel Park this Tuesday at the annual Park After Dark event.
The after-hours celebration from 6 to 10 p.m. features live music, food, and classic carnival fun to support the mission of maintaining the vintage kiddie park with classic rides.
The night’s entertainment will include The Sophisticats, featuring Jimmy Sansone performing a mix of pop, rock, jazz, and blues. Vocalist Kirk McWhorter will sing a nostalgic musical tribute to the ‘30s, ‘40s, and ‘50s under the LakeSide Tent.
The park’s well-known vintage arcade will be the site of a skee-ball tournament to win prizes.
“There’s a lot of things going on for people,” said Deanna Knapp, a Carousel Park volunteer for eight years. “There’s six carousel races and a fortune teller.”
Knapp said carousel horses have sponsors and attendees can bet on horses to win cash.
Knapp said the amusement park setting energizes the event.
“It’s like a carnival atmosphere,” Knapp said. “We have hundreds of people that come. The environment is very entertaining. The carousel is from 1937 and it’s all vintage rides in the park.”
Event participants will be able to try their hand at traditional midway games of chance, including disc drop or Plinko, ring toss, duck game, bowling game, leap frog game and a punch board game.
Knapp and her husband built many of the midway games, with features harkening back to Newfane or Olcott.
“I think about the old-fashioned games we used to play at the old field days,” she said. “We’re just trying to continue the feel of an old-time carnival.”
Knapp said the disc drop board that she created features a 1938 map of the Town of Newfane, which draws people’s attention.
“People like to come and look at it and see the houses and where they used to live on it,” she said. “It’s another way to celebrate Olcott.”
At Tuesday’s event, disc drop players can win giant cookies from the Cookie Cottage in Wilson, beach towels, full-sized candy bars, and bottle openers. Other midway prizes include Buffalo sports memorabilia, local gift certificates, and bottles of wine and hard cider from Newfane area producers.
Proceeds are used to develop the park’s infrastructure, upgrade buildings, and restore rides, said Gina Guido-Redden, the event’s organizer.
“We’re getting more and more families from Buffalo, the South towns and Rochester,” Knapp said.
Tickets are $35 pre-sale or $40 at the gate, including a catered dinner by Wegmans. Advance tickets are available at the Olcott Beach Carousel Park ticket booth or from local vendors, or can be purchased at the event. E-tickets are available.