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The Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, also known as the Ringling Bros. Circus, Ringling Bros., the Barnum & Bailey Circus, Barnum & Bailey, or simply Ringling, is an American traveling circus company billed as The Greatest Show on Earth.
It and its predecessor have run shows from 1871, with a hiatus from 2017 to 2023. They operate as Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey.
The circus started in 1919 when the Barnum & Bailey's Greatest Show on Earth, a circus created by P. T. Barnum and James Anthony Bailey, was merged with the Ringling Bros. World's Greatest Shows. The Ringling brothers purchased Barnum & Bailey Ltd. in 1907 following Bailey's death in 1906, but ran the circuses separately until they were merged in 1919.
After 1957, the circus no longer exhibited under its own portable big top tents, instead using permanent venues such as sports stadiums and arenas. In 1967, Irvin Feld and his brother Israel, along with Houston judge Roy Hofheinz, bought the circus from the Ringling family.
In 1971, the Felds and Hofheinz sold the circus to Mattel, buying it back from the toy company in 1981. Since the death of Irvin Feld in 1984, the circus has continued to be a part of Feld Entertainment, an international entertainment firm headed by his son Kenneth Feld, with its headquarters in Ellenton, Florida.
In May 2017, with weakening attendance, many animal rights protests, and high operating costs, the circus performed its final animal show at Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum and closed indefinitely.
In May 2022, after a five-year hiatus, Feld Entertainment announced that the circus would resume touring in the fall of 2023, but without animals.
The Ringlings purchased the Barnum & Bailey Greatest Show on Earth in 1907 and ran the circuses separately until 1919. By that time, Charles Edward Ringling and John Nicholas Ringling were the only remaining brothers of the five who founded the circus. They decided that it was too difficult to run the two circuses independently because of labour shortages and complications to rail travel brought about by American involvement in World War I, and on March 29, 1919, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Combined Shows debuted in New York City. The posters declared, The Ringling Bros. World's Greatest Shows and the Barnum & Bailey Greatest Show on Earth are now combined into one record-breaking giant of all exhibitions.
Charles E. Ringling died in 1926, but the circus flourished through the Roaring Twenties.
After Walt Disney World opened near Orlando, Florida, in 1971, the circus attempted to cash in on the resulting tourism surge by opening Circus World theme park in nearby Haines City, which broke ground in April 1973. The theme park was expected to become the circus's winter home as well as to have the Clown College located there. Mattel placed the circus corporation up for sale in December 1973 despite its profit contributions, as Mattel as a whole had a $29.9 million loss in 1972. The park's opening was delayed until February 1974.
In October 2021, Feld Entertainment Chairman and CEO Kenneth Feld and COO Juliette Feld Grossman announced that the circus would be relaunched in 2023, without animal performances.
On September 29, 2023, after a six-year hiatus, the relaunched circus kicked off at Brookshire Grocery Arena in Bossier City, Louisiana.
More information: Ringling
-or see circus elephants paraded down the streets.
When animals are caged,
it's a loss of what they are.
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