 As a showman , Butlin quickly became successful , one stall becoming several , and several becoming his own travelling fair . Butlin soon had fixed fairground sites as well as his travelling fair – the first was at Olympia in London outside Bertram Mills ' Circus . In 1925 he opened a set of fairground stalls in Barry Island , Wales where he observed the way landladies in seaside resorts would ( sometimes literally ) push families out of the lodgings between meals , and began to nurture the idea of a holiday camp similar to the one he had attended whilst an employee at Eatons . 
