After 146 years,
“The Greatest Show on Earth” will make its final bow. The owner of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus says it will close in May.
ELLENTON — After 146 years, the curtain is coming down on “The Greatest Show on Earth.”
The owner of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus said Saturday night that the show will close in May.
The company broke the news to circus employees after shows in Miami and Orlando.
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.”
Ringling Bros. has two touring circuses this season and will perform 30 shows between now and May. Major stops include Atlanta, Boston, Philadelphia and Washington.
The final shows will be May 7 in Providence, R.I., and May 21 at the Nassau County Coliseum in Uniondale, N.Y.
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.
P.T. Barnum made a traveling spectacle of animals and human oddities popular, while the five Ringling brothers performed juggling acts and skits from their home base in Wisconsin. Eventually, they merged and the modern circus was born.
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 family entertainment. But as the 20th century went on, children became less and less enthralled.
The Feld family bought the Ringling circus in 1967. The show was just under 3 hours then. Today, the show is 2 hours and 7 minutes, with the longest segment — a tiger act — clocking in at 12 minutes.
“Try getting a 3- or 4-year-old today to sit for 12 minutes,” he said.
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 of 2016, 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.
The animals had been the symbol of the circus since Barnum brought an Asian elephant named Jumbo to America in 1882.
Attendance has been dropping for 10 years, said Juliette Feld, but when the elephants left, there was a “dramatic drop” in ticket sales.