sideshow

Noun

1. A minor attraction at a larger event such as a circus, fair or music festival.
   • 1999 November 8, Frank Hayes, The Back Page: The main event, Computerworld, page 86, And IT people dismiss IT′s impact because, hey, we like being a sideshow to the real action.
   • 1999, Australian Bureau of Statistics, Year Book, Australia, Number 81, page 349, Other recreation services, including amusement parks or arcades, sideshows, circuses and agricultural shows, accounted for another 666...
   • In Australia he busked (singing on street corners), steeplejacked, was a drover and sheep shearer, did motor bike stunts in sideshows and even painted the Sydney Harbor^([sic]) Bridge. - 2002, Steve Evans, Ron...
2. An incidental spectacle that diverts attention from a larger concern.
   • Far from learning from the failures of ‘economic rationalism,’ the Liberals want us to swallow more of the snake oil medicine while diverting our attention to the consumption tax sideshow. - 1997, Frank Stilwell, “One...
   • Even the reality shows focused on addiction, like “Intervention,” “Rehab With Dr. Drew” (thankfully canceled) or that show where people have bizarre addictions like eating chalk or scouring powder, have done almost...
   • An emergency brake to limit in-work benefits for EU migrants is a “sideshow” that will fail to reduce the number of arrivals to the UK, Alan Johnson has said. - 2016 February 4, Nicholas Watt, quoting Alan Johnson,...
3. An incident in which drivers block traffic to perform stunts like donuts and burnouts for an extended period of time.
   • The spontaneous street party is the center of Oakland's recently developing Hyphy culture, but has a long history in Oakland car culture and hip hop. A sideshow is essentially a spontaneous street party in which one...
   • On July 3, 2016, at 10:35pm, Sergeant Cleveland and Officer Henderson (“the Officers”) were on patrol near Fullerton, California looking for illegal street racing and “sideshows,” events where streets are blocked off...
   • Gov. Gavin Newsom of California signed a law in October threatening a six-month suspension of a driver’s license for participating in a sideshow, even as a spectator. […] Since the emergence of sideshows in Oakland in...