| Many expecting to see the Greatest Show On Earth this morning were turned away after finding out that Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus had been canceled. |
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Morning Circus Performance Canceled!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
24 comments:
From the USA Catbird SEAT...I still believe in the following. If you don't have good front, you're finished....You can have the MESSIAH coming to town, But unless you tell People he's coming he's in for get it..........I visited the Johnstown, Pa Box Office on Monday, Sept.15th the day GOLD UNIT B.O. Opened....Very disappointing when you see nothing on the coming of the GOLD....Not even a flyer or poster..I rest my case..........To bad because the Gold we saw in Sarasota last January was good show......
On the up side, the monies lost on this operation is a drop in the bucket compared with "Kaleidoscope".
The show is routed scientifically by tossing darts at a map of the United States.
I am told that recently the wrong map had been posted and the show will be given four days off to drive from Gloucester, Massachusetts to Caracas, Venezuela.
Ringling used to have in their newspaper ads: GOOD SEATS AVAILABLE AS LATE AS SHOW TIME.
That is about to change to: IF WE HAVE A SHOW, GOOD SEATS AVAILABLE AS LATE AS SHOW TIME.
Rumor round the world has the following info: the MONSTER TRUCK SHOW will PRECEDE the circus by one week on the entire 2009 tour. That's right, one week MONSTER TRUCKS next week CIRCUS.
Theory is when the Monster Trucks are finished they can drive over to the train yard and pull the wagons back to the arena.
Talk about a Mickey Mouse operation...opps, he's on the Ice Show where there is a whole bunch of Goofys.
With only 100 tickets sold for the early show, it's obvious the the RBBB promoter cancelled the performance. Fortunately there was a 6:30 show.
How many times do the airlines cancell a flight due to too few people.
Monster Trucks with Feld now re-painted:
The Kenny Krusher and will be featured in the themed monster truck show, Nuked by Nicole.
With that 4 day jump to
Caracas I hope they were
paying gas money and it
that it was at least a 2
day spot
Chic
This is not an airline, this is circus...how many times in the 138 years of Ringling did they cancel a show because of too few people.
They should be adding shows because of DEMAND not cancelling due to lack of interest.
They could take a few Chinese, put them on ice and have Mickey Mouse drive a monster truck around, combine all three shows into one.
Ringling Brothers' Mice on Ice Monster Truck-A-Rama.
this is a dangerous precedent for the greatest show on earth. many shows have had horrible advance sales but packed houses due to crowd surges at show-time.
this practice will generate more heat than any phone promotion.the advance for this show, particularly the routing, gives credibility to the idea of throwing darts at a map to pick the next town.
one more instance proving how important allen bloom was to the success of the feld operations. the gold unit has a performance that should create great word of mouth. cancelling because of poor ticket sales created the kind of word of mouth nobody needs.
has everyone forgotten that the strong advance -- routing and booking, press, advertising and billing -- filled seats for many years? the good old days were much more than street parades, large menageries, live bands and three rings filled with good acts.
An anonymous party on the show told that the performance most likely to be cut is the final one. Particularly if there's a tight jump to the next town.
"What's the advance tonight?"
"175"
"Take it down!"
C&B had a general rule that if they didn't have 50 people they would not show. I was not on the show when they cancelled a performance!!!
Bob Kitto
Henry,
I had forgotten the term "crowd surge". I haven't heard it used in about 22 years. LOL
Buckles,
"Take it down!!!!!" That's another classic from you. LOL I thought that was only reserved for tornadoes and other bad weather. Allen Bloom and Irvin Feld are lighting up a Monte Christo as we speak.
Wade Burck
Well, here in Connecticut the Bellobration unit tickets are going as high as $90.
Then we were looking at tickets to see Reba McIntyre and Carrie Underwood and those tickets go for $200 up to $1900. Please reread $200 up to $1900; plus parking of course. Yes, that is $1,900 top tickets.
I thought Ringling was bad; now they look like the cheapest ticket at thearena. That's my opinion, I am not defending anyone.
It's the same here in Portland. My son went on the net to look up tickets for Monday Night Raw( wrestling) and they want 200.00 for the cheapest seats at the Rose Garden and believe me they will be sold out.
I have been on a couple shows that have canceled the matinée due to less then maybe 50 people, but canceling the last show would indicate real problems (shouldn't that be the big one?)
Wouldn't this be an occasion to implement the short show?
Adaline
Long long ago on the Beatty show
Roger Boyd our ringmaster would
always check the "house" and then
return out the back door with a
report
On one VERY slow day he exclaimed
"they better not start anything
cause we've got them outnumbered"
Chic
My favorite is "Not enough people for a good fist fight!"
Okie Carr once told me...When he was on Jack Moore's "Carson & Barnes' 1 time only 1 family of 7 people showed up...Jack went to all the performers and said if they paid him $1.00 they didnt have to work...Okie said he peeled off a buck and anted-up...He was the only 1 that didnt work that show as the other Kinkers were to cheap to pay...Jack made em all do a show..except Okie...thus no Cats or Elephants......
I know zoo shows are different but Jules Jacot put on his show more than once for an audience that numbered less than the cats in the act. I followed his example and remember working for 5 or 6 people on a cold September afternoon when the kids were in school. If they seemed appreciative I'd do the whole act, if not they'd get a "John Robinson" so we could all go home sooner.
There is the oft-told story of the troubled mid-50s, when there were only a handful of people on the midway for the matinee. Someone went back to Mr. Beatty, and said, "Boss, there's only 12 people on the midway. How about we refund their money and hope for better house tonight?" To which Mr. Beatty replied, "We can't disappoint those people. We'll show, and give them everything we've got." That's a showman.
Roger Smith
Cliff Vargas had a strong promotion involving free tickets that made it impossible to know just how many were coming, if any.
If it hit, business was big but if it didn't we would do three performances to just a hand full of people and if any performances were canceled Cliff would subject to legal action by the State.
Needless to say, none were canceled.
Sid Kellner ran a similar type promotion and misjudged it's success in Sacramento and despite giving extra performances, couldn't handle the crowds.
Later a friend sent me an afterblast from the Sacramento Bee stating, "James Bros. Circus has come and gone! The biggest robbery since Jessie and Frank!"
How big were the crowds you ask?
To quote W.C. Fields,"The crowds were so big, they couldn't applaud this way!" (horizontal)
"They had to applaud this way!' (vertical)
"And they couldn't laugh Ho! Ho! Ho! they had to laugh Hee! Hee! Hee!"
On Miller-Johnson, Charlies Allen and Germaine so over-promoted one California town, we did six "shows", which could barely be called that. Germain told Allen to Johnny each show. The cars kept coming and the seats filled and re-filled at this football stadium. I explained I couldn't cut the lion act that often without real trouble from confusing the animals, so I did the whole act. But the other acts entered the rings, did one trick and bowed out. Something of each act was seen, but the show was over in 30 minutes. Talk about heat. The paper was rife with complaints about the "obviously abbreviated show" and the crowds being run over each other to get them in and out. The money was made, but the town was so burned you wouldn't have wanted to be the next circus there for years.
Roger S.
Post a Comment