Hi Buckles,
I see that the circus historians took you to task for the photo you posted with the story on the last days of Ringling under canvas in Pittsburgh in 1956. Here is a photo taken on the last day the show appeared under canvas in Pittsburgh on July 16, 1956. You'll note that the menagerie tent was not raised, a common occurrence that season due to labor problems. All the best,
Don
".....thanks but a cost that must be bourne for ones true art form......"
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Wednesday, July 09, 2014
From Don Covington
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A very historic picture of the end of an era for Ringling.
But if my old memory does not fail me this is the 1955 big top used in 1956.
Somewhere in New York they had high winds etc that ripped the new 1956 tent and they played blue sky until the older 1955 tent arrived.
Harry in Texas
Funny how terms change over the years. When I first started billing circuses we called a date without a sponsor a "blue sky" date. Maybe it was just used that way on the advance.
The late 1944 Ringling route in open-air stadiums was called the "Blue Heaven" circuit.
And there was a term I have not heard in many years- "airdrome" meaning sidewalled. Herb Walters used to talk about his picture show playing in an airdrome during the War when canvas was scarce and the cost of a top was prohibitive to a high-grass movie operator.
OK - a question I have asked many veterans.
What, if any, is the difference between a "herald" and a "courier"?
These are the printed material distributed in advance of the show.
I have several booklet type printed material and several one page items.
Also, did the advance man, called the programer distribute the booklets when he arrived with one of the advance train cars?
A famous and successful contemporary Engagement Director (promoter) told me that no show has ever been over promoted.
My own mantra is "This year's show sells next year's tickets."
Hmmmm.
Mike:
I can only give you the definitions as used by old-time billers I worked with. A courier was a booklet, frequently printed by rotogravure with a color cover and blue and brown inside pages. Rotogravure lends itself to pictorial layouts, which these mostly were with a few stories. The town and date would be printed on the cover. These were what the programmer passed out using a small cart on the order of a Popsicle cart. These are almost always incorrectly described as "programs" on eBay.
A herald was usually a long sheet printed by letterpress on both sides on inexpensive newsprint, often pink in color. Heavy on halftone and line illustrations and with the town and date either printed or sometimes rubber stamped on one side at the bottom.
Now there were also newspaper heralds usually on newsprint and printed by letterpress but in the twenties and early thirties these were sometimes done by rotogravure. And there were tabloid heralds also by rotogravure or sometimes offset.
Having said the above, there are or were many variations and were called by different names by different bill crews. The first show I worked on- Famous Cole- had a herald printed on both sides of a sheet about the size of a newspaper sheet and folded Christmas card style, the cover was in color and the inside in black and white. I believe they may have come from that printing firm in Perry, Iowa that R M Harvey was affiliated with. Maybe it was called Chief Printing. Part of my work was to pass these out as soon as we arrived in the town we would be billing the next day. Also the lady putting out window cards would take a few to be left on the counters of stores.
When John and Gracie Hoffman had Acme Printers in Hugo, several of the shows bought offset folding heralds from them. They were mailed to the locals rather than handed out. Prior to Acme, the shows used letterpress newspaper heralds from Neal Walters which was then in Eureka Springs, also mailed out.
A comment on what you said about whether a show can be over-promoted. Francis Kitzman had the Dailey Bros car at one time and said B C Davenport was one smart showman because when business dropped off he would have Francis hire additional billers, whereas some other show owners would let billers go as a way of saving money in hard times.
July 16th the last day under
canvas at Heidelberg Raceway
was in Scott Township NEAR but
not IN Pittsburg PA (as shown)
Jack "The Ripper" Molinari told
me that again & again for many
years before he died in 08 as
he would stop by my office on
his way downtown each day
He was a pretty funny guy
There was a blowdown in Auburn,NY earlier in the season.
Whitey - just for clarifications. Were the long heralds passed out or were they newspaper inserts or both?
It would be interesting to learn about the advance methods used by shows around the globe, if any of our overseas bloggers would like to share.
I wonder if Bailey used these American tactics when BB went to Europe.
Mike- I believe the long heralds were always handed out.
This reminds me of something else. In the old days railroads would give excursion rates to people going to another town to see the circus and there were heralds called "excursion bills" to advertise this fact.
There would usually be a nail on the wall somewhere in small railroad stations where the billposters could "spike" a stack of these bills. That was about the only billing allowed on railroad property.
Yes, I do have a couple of excursion heralds.
I am making a guess that when the billing crews went on their outbound excursion routes they would bring these with them for the local peasantry.
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