I’m sorry to see it go, although I can understand the objection to the animal acts.
I went to the Ringling Brothers circus several times as a child, and I took my own children several times. I had kind of hoped to see it again – preferably with my future grandchildren as an excuse. Oh, well.
Another thing from “our” ( not all of you) past goes away.
The older I get, the less the present even remotely resembles my past, especially my youth. It will probably be even more pronounced for our kids. Although I cannot fathom the current projectile continuing on its current speed. That will make life very different in the future.
Circus Vargus is still around
Cat and dog videos on youtube are what we watch for entertainment nowadays. I was never a huge fan of animal acts except the domesticated animals… and even those can be mistreated in the process of training (I watched a movie about a kid who wanted to have a dancing rooster after seeing one - then the kid realized that the rooster was “trained” to dance on a hot plate while the music was playing…). I would be fine seeing dog and horse acts because they can be trained using positive reinforcement. Cats… No thanks.
That said, I am perfectly fine with human acts - flying acrobats, contortionists, clowns - bring them on! 
“Don’t like clowns, don’t like freak shows, don’t like performing animals. Traditional circuses seem sad and depressing. I do enjoy Cirque de Soleil.”
Yeah, me too.
I have never enjoyed or understood circuses. So glad we didn’t have to subject our kids to that crap.
I was never a circus fan. My parents took us to Ringling Brothers but I never took my kids. Circus Vargas comes through our fairgrounds every few years and I’m sure my kids went but just not with me. I also strongly dislike carnivals and the fair.
I’ve never been to a Cirque de Soleil show but I would like to.
Circus animal acts really bother me. I feel the same way about marine animal acts.
I wonder if attendance dropped after elephants were eliminated from the show because people are increasingly not willing to ignore how unnatural life is for a captive, performing wild animal compared to life in the wild. I’d like to think so.
Though I went to the circus as a child, we never took our kids to the circus. Cirque du Soleil, yes.
I remember when I was a kid being a little disappointed that the Ringling Bros. circus was such a professional affair in a big sports arena. I read a lot of Nancy Drew and other mysteries as a very little kid and I had the firm impression that circuses were seedy affairs employing crooks lurking around the outside of the tents, smoking cigarettes and trying to lure little kids to run away and join the circus. I don’t recall exactly why that scenario appealed to me – maybe I figured that it would finally be my chance to intervene and stop some crime and solve my own mystery. But I was very disappointed when we got to the place and it was the same venue that the Lakers played in, with about as much likelihood of my interacting directly with the performers as at a Lakers’ game. (I don’t even remember their being tents).
And my mom wouldn’t take us to the more home-spun circuses in tents in parking lots. She was a bit paranoid, and I think she assumed if we went to one of those we’d be trampled by an elephant, trapped in a terrible tent fire, and mugged by a seedy carney. So I never felt like I had the TRUE circus experience as a kid.
It seems like more than a bit of a leap to assume that the declining popularity of circusesrsns that kids just sit around playing video games.
I mean, isn’t going to the circus just a once or twice a year thing? If people are no longer as interested in it, that doesn’t really signal a huge change in how they spend their time.
I’m another one who never much lined the animal acts. We might have taken our kids to the circus once but it certainly wasn’t a regular thing.
We went to various theater and musical performances. Almost always a live performance of some kind during the Christmas season. Some spirting events. We live in a college town and tickets to the non-football sports are cheap or even free.
I think there are more traveling performances featuring kids’ characters now. Sesame Street Live, Disney on Ice, that sort of thing. Those are pretty popular it seems.
"I remember when I was a kid being a little disappointed that the Ringling Bros. circus was such a professional affair in a big sports arena. "
I agree on that aspect. That’s why I preferred the Big Apple Circus which was in a tent and a smaller venue.
I’ve never heard of Circus Vargas. Looks like a west coast thing?
My dad took me, my sister and all my cousins to the circus when I was about 5. I started hysterically crying almost immediately. He had to take me home. My older cousins were there so watched younger kids until he got back.
It is amazing to think how big Ringling brothers was, their Florida complex was huge and they had multiple travelling shows, they literally were the largest travelling organization in the world. From what I know they have been in decline for a number of years, I don’t think it is so much video games and whatnot as to changing tastes, plus the cost of going to the Ringling Brothers circus the last I checked was pretty expensive, between the tickets, concenssions and the like it was very expensive for a family to go to. Given people’s budgets, I suspect they would rather budget big ticket things like that to sporting events or some kind of family friendly show they do at arenas and such.
@BunsenBurner - we once went to a cat circus and I don’t even know how to explain it. It was so bizarre that it was hysterical. Google cat circus.
Haha. I just looked at a cat circus video but I was expecting cats just sitting around with a look on their face that said, “You want me to do WHAT?!?”.
I took my kids to a circus when they were young and they asked to never go again. Same with the zoo. At first I was a little sad but my kids saw what I couldn’t see-animal cruelty. Kids are so very insightful. We haven’t been back to a circus or zoo (or seaworld).
I don’t enjoy circuses (nor even movies about circuses). Have we shared about clowns yet? I don’t enjoy them either.
Both of my parents had tickets for the RB/B&B circus in Hartford on July 6th, 1944, which of course turned out to be one of the worst fire tragedies in US history. They didn’t know each other then - he was 11 and she was 8.
Not the only reason I dislike circuses, but it’s probably a big one.
When I was a kid my parents would take us to Ringling Bros in the old MSG… mostly I remember the shiny lights that you would buy. I took my kids when they were little to Big Apple Circus, sad that they closed last year having lost many of their corporate donors and private corporate performance opportunities.
Hope that the soon to be president will include circus performers in all the jobs that he is planning to create
I went to Ringling Bros, probably in Madison Square Garden, when I was a little kid. I wasn’t crazy about it.
I went to a REALLY traditional European tent circus when we lived in Holland in the late 70s. It was wonderful. Great acrobats, great trained dog act, possibly ponies, IIRC. A completely different experience. There was none of the sideshow aspect.
My mother, who is also 93, has childhood memories of the circus coming to town on the train, and the elephants walking through the streets in the very early morning.
BTW, I love the movie The Greatest Show on Earth.
I got tickets for my parents to take our oldest son when he was five or so. I paid enough to get them really good seats. They didn’t even last half of the show before they had to leave, because DS was crying so much. I guess the clowns scared him.
I hate clowns, too.