I had the privilege recently to attend a dinner lecture, in which the guest speaker was a professor of circus history at the University of Virginia. Although I'm not a huge fan of the circus ( I liked those motorcycles in the spinning cage- that was about it), his presentation on the history of the circus in America was fascinating.
He discussed the parent company, FELD entertainment as the owner, who dropped Ringling due to decreasing revenue. FELD is a huge company which manages (I think) Disney on Ice as well as the monster truck events, and I think even some indoor motorcycle racing (I could be wrong). The presenter mentioned that the circus was simply not as profitable as some of the other (ie- monster truck) events. At the time of the lecture, there was still hope some of the smaller non-related circus companies would buy the ringling assets (train, equipment, etc. over.)
What was interesting was that he mentioned ringling had (two? at least) trains going around the country simultaneously, and that there were many other smaller (non ringling) circus shows that were thriving and growing. He stated there was an incredibly huge facility in florida that housed all of the different feld shows, but that the logistics of ringling was too much without the ROI the company was getting from the ice shows and monster trucks. I think he mentioned that shows that were small enough to hit smaller towns in the midwest, without the large city/crowd draws needed by a show the size of ringling were having a resurgence.
In relation to the other thread here about the Dancing/other degree- He also stated that interest in students studying circus performing has been increasing lately!
