Ringling Bros. calling it quits
‘The Greatest Show on Earth’ ending in May
Ellenton, Fla. — After 146 years, the curtain is coming down on “The Greatest Show on Earth.” The owner of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus told The Associated Press that the show will close forever in May.
The iconic American spectacle was felled by a variety of factors, company executives say.
Declining attendance combined with high operating costs, along with changing public tastes and prolonged battles with animal rights groups all contributed to its demise.
“There isn’t any one thing,” said Kenneth Feld, chairman and CEO of Feld Entertainment. “This has been a very difficult decision for me and for the entire family.”
The company broke the news to circus employees Saturday night after shows in Orlando and Miami.
Ringling Bros. has two touring circuses this season and will perform 30 shows between now and May.
Major stops include Atlanta, Washington, Philadelphia, Boston and Brooklyn, N.Y. The final shows will be in Providence, R.I., on May 7 and in Uniondale, N.Y., at the Nassau County Coliseum on May 21.
The circus, with its exotic animals, flashy costumes and death-defying acrobats, has been a staple of entertainment in the United States since the mid-1800s.
The five Ringling brothers performed their first circus on May 19, 1884, in the backyard of the county jail property on Broadway St. in Baraboo, Wis. Within a few years, the family created the famous circus, eventually moving from Baraboo after World War I.
Circus World Museum in Baraboo, however, still features a large sampling of the circus’ history, including Ringlingville, where the circus spent its off-season into the early 20th century, and detailed displays on the emergence of the Ringling Brothers.
While the Ringling brothers performed juggling acts and skits from their home base in Wisconsin, Phineas Taylor Barnum made a traveling spectacle of animals and human oddities popular.
Eventually, they merged. The sprawling troupes traveled around America by train, wowing audiences with the sheer scale of entertainment and exotic animals.
By midcentury, the circus was routine, wholesome family entertainment. But as the 20th century went on, kids became less and less enthralled. Movies, television, video games and the internet captured young minds. The circus didn’t have savvy product merchandising tie-ins or Saturday morning cartoons to shore up its image.
Feld and his daughter, Juliette Feld, who is the company’s chief operating officer, acknowledged another reality that led to the closing, and it was the one thing that initially drew millions to the show: the animals. Ringling has been targeted by activists who say forcing animals to perform is cruel and unnecessary.
In May, after a long and costly legal battle, the company removed the elephants from the shows and sent the animals to live on a conservation farm in Central Florida.
Attendance has been dropping for 10 years, said Juliette Feld, but when the elephants left, there was a “dramatic drop” in ticket sales. Paradoxically, while many said they didn’t want big animals to perform in circuses, many others refused to attend a circus without them.