Update: the final show on May 21, 2017 will be live streamed. Details at Ringling.com
The Greatest Show on Earth will soon be no more. The Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey Circus, which has been touring the United States for more than 100 years, will soon fold up its big top for the last time.
Many will feel a tinge of nostalgia at this news; others will say it’s about time.
Kenneth Feld, the CEO of Feld Entertainment, which owns the circus, noted that the decision was linked to falling ticket sales, especially following the decision to retire the performing elephants that have been a big part of the circus since first PT Barnum introduced an animal named Jumbo to American audiences in 1882.
That decision was applauded by animal-rights activists and others for whom the idea of circus has moved on to a focus on colour, music and feats of human endurance, as exemplified by Cirque du Soleil.
Feld wrote on the Ringling Bros website: “After much evaluation and deliberation, my family and I have made the difficult business decision that Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey® will hold its final performances in May of this year.
“Ringling Bros. ticket sales have been declining, but following the transition of the elephants off the road, we saw an even more dramatic drop. This, coupled with high operating costs, made the circus an unsustainable business for the company.”
Feld Entertainment itself has moved on from circus shows into such entertainment offerings as Disney on Ice, Disney Live, Marvel Universe Live and various motocross spectaculars.
While there are still “traditional” circuses doing the rounds — notably in eastern Europe, where notions of what constitutes animal cruelty are different — they are all but gone from the west.
Yet the acrobatics, the clowning, the magic and the mystery remains, just in different forms.
