Collapse of the Big Top: Ringling Bros Ceases Operations

The fond memories of going to see the circus when it was in town will now be exactly that, just memories of a forgotten time. Ringling Brothers, the name synonymous with the circus and the famous tagline: “The Greatest Show on Earth” has ceased operations.

The factors driving the decision were pretty straightforward: costs were up and attendance had declined for the event across the board. The railroad car equivalent of what it requires to bring the circus to town would be around 120 trucks. The cost for transporting all of the equipment, the animals, the performers, and the various staff became astronomical.

In comparison, according to the reports from the executives at Ringling Brothers, a large scale musician or musical band would need a fraction of that to go out on tour, approximately 30 to 40 trucks. The ice shows and those types of tours need about half the amount of trucks as the circus maybe a fraction less, so the cost factors are much different for those other types of events.

The circus was a rite of passage, as a child and as an adult I have fond memories of attending the event and taking in the performances and the animals. I live in the New York metropolitan area so Ringling Brothers would come in to the arena at the Meadowlands, then Madison Square Garden, and then out to Long Island; or somewhere in that order. The event was a big deal and the circus usually came into the New York area at the holidays or at some big point in the year when families were off and could attend because they would stay in the area for three or four weeks to hit all three arenas.

The lions, the tigers, and the elephants were always the big draw that gained the excitement of the crowd. The acrobats and other performers brought energy and at some points laughter to the show as well. In thinking back, similar to other things in life when they are gone, part of me wishes I had gone back to the circus recently for one last time.

The New York area also had the Big Apple Circus which would run under a big top tent outdoors in the metro area. That company was consolidated with the parent company of Ringling Brothers at one point, and Big Apple ceased operations and held a liquidation sale a few months ago.

The world has changed and the way that people spend their leisure time has changed as well. The circus tried to innovate, to scale down, and to make certain adjustments to their performance event to attract younger audiences. They failed to make that connection and the major arenas were left with declining attendance figures.

In addition, the circus promotions such as Ringling Brothers and Big Apple among others, had to deal with a continuous onslaught of legal suits from animal rights groups regarding the use of certain animals in their respective performances. The legal fees, time, and other associated costs drained the companies that were attempting to operate the circus amidst a changed entertainment landscape.

The legal actions taken against Ringling Brothers in particular, served as the impetus for their decision to remove the elephants from their performances. The promoters and some other groups who maintain surveys to gauge feedback on entertainment events found that the majority of those surveyed stopped attending the circus because the elephants were no longer in the performance.

It was a double-edged sword for the circus because they made changes to the performance to alleviate one potential issue and ended up still losing money because others stopped attending the performances.

The United States is left with one other mainstream circus promotion but they have scaled back both their length of performance and the number of performance events that they hold each year. It remains to be seen what the future holds for that particular circus promotion.

Meanwhile, the industry has promotions which hold circus performances in smaller venues such as theaters which have much lower overhead production and staffing costs. The industry also may spawn more Cirque de Soleil style events with performances centered on acrobatics, dance, and musical arrangements rather than clowns and animals.

It is certainly a far cry from my childhood when “the circus is coming” was huge news and you got your seats and waited with anticipation with your bag of popcorn for “The Greatest Show on Earth” to begin. The major league sports teams from the NBA and NHL would schedule longer road trips to accommodate the circus when it was in your respective city.

Now, I am left with the memories of those times at the circus shared with my family. It is a shame that future generations of families, that children of all ages will be denied those memories. The “Big Top” has come down for the last time.