Saturday, April 15, 2017

#13 RB Gold


6 comments:

Larry Louree said...

Was the Gold unit a response to BAC and some other shows? A smaller truck based show, could go to just about anywhere?

Chic Silber said...


This was the Monte Carlo traveling show

which I designed & built & was Technical

Director of for it's abreviated life

It was however the reason the Committee

Under The High Patronage of His Serene

Highness Prince Ranier III awarded me

the only gold clown to a non performer

Our train froze up upon our arrival in

Providence for our grand opening in 79

The Felds were trying (unsuccessfully)

to prove they could market an arena

production without the Ringling title

Chic Silber said...


I invented some new lighting

fixtures for this show that

later became elements of new

show lighting systems that

I built for other circuses

including the Beatty Show

Chic Silber said...


Early on there was an attempt

to call this the gold show

but it didn't stick although

the train cars & some of the

wagons & tugs were goldish

However other equipment was

painted duckshit mustard

I painted all of our sound

lighting & projection crates

purple that we had mixed to

match a Don Foote request

from previous Red or Blue

show use that didn't pass

his sharp eyed inspection

Brandon said...

This is so interesting as it really looks like the Ringling Shows produced 30 years later. Was that some kind of projection screen in the middle?

Chic Silber said...


Mattel money but Ringling control

We had 2 screens for that central

open area either of which mounted

with short shock cords in the frame

The 1 shown here for Providence was

a front surface screen as there

wasn't sufficient distance behind

for us to use the rear projection

system of the twin xenon machines

We had both slide & film segments

I have all the drawings & plans

however I donated some of them to

Don Covington for the Historical

Society fund raiser last year

This entire production & the 74

total restoration of the Venice

Arena with it's proscenium wall

were 2 of my greatest projects

in the realm of circus