What is a Sideshow?

I have heard many of my friend talking about what a Sideshow is?  They have told me that it's anything from a performer at a festival, to a large show on the Midway.  I was wondering if there is a definition of what a sideshow is?  Thanks, Don Nielsen NJ.

Don, The traditional definition of a sideshow is the small tent next to the Big Top which has the Main Show.  Today a lot of the performers who do traditional sideshow acts call themselves sideshow performers.  John Robinson Sideshow World

I ask veteran Showman Ward Hall, this question.  This is what he shared with me.

A sideshow is a Ten-in-One on the midway.  There are other shows, girl shows, fat shows, Wild West Shows, Jig Shows, Store Show, ect.

But a sideshow is a Ten-in-One, which means ten acts in one show.

Ward Hall

Carny Lingo

SIDESHOW - Essentially, any show that plays the midway, though the now more common application is to the freak shows or ten-in-one shows. Technically, however, even a menagerie on the midway of a circus is a sideshow. Also 'side show'. 

James Taylor's SHOCKED & AMAZED

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