It’s curtains for ‘World’s Greatest Show’ after 146 years

ELLENTON — From New York to Wisconsin to London and beyond, the Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey Circus has performed for millions of fans during its 146-year reign as one of the world’s biggest big tops.

But the company announced on Saturday night (Jan 14) that after 146 years of performances, it was folding its big tent forever.

In a statement on the company’s website, Mr Kenneth Feld, the chief executive of Feld Entertainment, the producer of Ringling, said the circus would hold its final performances in May.

He cited declining ticket sales, which dropped even more dramatically after elephants were phased out from the shows last year.

“This, coupled with high operating costs, made the circus an unsustainable business for the company,” the statement said. “The circus and its people have continually been a source of inspiration and joy to my family and me.”

Mr Stephen Payne, a spokesman for Feld Entertainment, said in an interview Saturday night that the closing would affect about 400 cast and crew members.

“We looked at the performance in 2016 and advance tickets sales in 2017, and we decided it was not a viable business model,” he said.

The company informed employees Saturday night after shows in Miami and Orlando, Florida.

“There isn’t any one thing,” Feld told The Associated Press. “This has been a very difficult decision for me and for the entire family.”

Ringling has two touring circuses this season and will perform 30 shows between now and May. Major stops include Atlanta, Boston, Brooklyn, Philadelphia and Washington. The final shows will be May 7 in Providence, Rhode Island, and May 21 at the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale, New York.

An estimated 10 million people go to a Ringling circus each year.

Feld told the AP that transporting the show by rail and other circus quirks * such as providing a traveling school for performers’ children * are throwbacks to another era.

“It’s a different model that we can’t see how it works in today’s world to justify and maintain an affordable ticket price,” he said. The Feld family bought Ringling in 1967.

Ringling has been targeted by activists who say forcing animals to perform is cruel and unnecessary, leading to the removal of the elephants, among the most popular features of the performances. The company sent its animals to live on a conservation farm in Florida.

On Twitter on Saturday night, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta), which campaigned for the elephants’ removal, heralded what it called “the end of the saddest show on earth for wild animals, and asks all other animal circuses to follow suit, as this is a sign of changing times”.

Peta president Ingrid Newkirk also said in its statement that 36 years of Peta protests had “awoken the world to the plight of animals in captivity”.

The elephants’ connection to New York dates to 1883, when circus founder P.T. Barnum offered to test the Brooklyn Bridge, which had just opened, by having elephants walk across it, the website Ephemeral New York reported. The authorities turned him down, but a year later, in a publicity stunt worthy of Barnum, elephants and other animals marched across the bridge.

In more recent times, the arrival of the circus in New York City has been announced with a ritual parade of elephants through the Midtown Tunnel.

Peta activists often appeared outside venues with fliers, protesting against the use of elephants, and pictures of animals they said were abused.

After Feld Entertainment sued, claiming malicious prosecution, more than a dozen animal welfare groups agreed in 2012 and 2014 to pay settlements totaling about US$25 million (S$35.6 million) to end 14 years of litigation.

The circus went by the slogan “The greatest show on earth” a catchphrase that was so ubiquitous it was employed for the title of the 1952 Cecil B. DeMille best picture Oscar-winning film starring Charlton Heston and Betty Hutton.

The show, has its roots in a spectacle that began two decades before the US Civil War. Equal parts freak show, zoo and museum, it officially became the circus that generations grew up watching and saw many evolutions over the years, most recently with its decision to retire its elephant acts.

A QUICK HISTORY OF THE RINGLING BROS AND BARNUM & BAILEY CIRCUS

1841: Phineas Taylor (PT) Barnum buys Scudder’s American Museum in New York City and renames it Barnum’s American Museum, which was something of a zoo, museum, lecture hall and freak show. It was filled with artefacts and items from around the world. The museum later burned down. Barnum also took his show on the road as P.T. Barnum’s Grand Travelling American Museum.

1881: Barnum partners James A. Bailey and James L. Hutchinson for P.T. Barnum’s Greatest Show On Earth, And The Great London Circus, Sanger’s Royal British Menagerie and The Grand International Allied Shows United, later shortened to the Barnum & London Circus.

1882: The Ringling Brothers — Alf, Al, Charles, John and Otto — performed their first vaudeville-style show in Mazomanie, Wisconsin.

1884: The Ringling Brothers Circus begins as a travelling performance,

1887: The official Ringling touring show became the Ringling Bros. United Monster Shows, Great Double Circus, Royal European Menagerie, Museum, Caravan, and Congress of Trained Animals.

1895: The Ringlings decided to branch out to New England, which was already the territory of P.T. Barnum. According to the Wisconsin Historical Society, the two circuses “agreed to divide the US rather than compete head-to-head. The Ringlings established their headquarters in Chicago while Barnum and Bailey stayed in New York”.

1907: After the death of James Bailey, the Ringlings buy Barnum and Bailey. They keep the circuses separate, and the Wisconsin Historical Society wrote that by the 1910s the Ringling Bros. Circus had more than 1,000 employees, 335 horses, 26 elephants, 16 camels and other assorted animals that travelled on 92 railcars. The Barnum and Bailey Circus was roughly the same size.

1919: The two circuses merged and became known as Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Combined Shows

1927: John Ringling moves the circus headquarters to Sarasota, Florida.

1967: Irvin Feld, a music and entertainment promoter, buys The Ringling circus and formally acquires it in a ceremony held at the Colosseum in Rome.

1985: Kenneth Feld, Irvin’s son, becomes the owner of Feld Entertainment and the circus after his father dies.

2016: Feld Entertainment announces it will retire elephants from its circus shows. The animals are moved to its Centre for Elephant Conservation in Polk County, Florida.

2017: Feld Entertainment announces that it will close the Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey Circus. AGENCIES