The New York Times published a great article last week about Feld Entertainment, specifically about Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus. The story by Stephanie Sinclair and Taffy Brodesser-Akner shows how the business adapts to change in order to stay relevant and entertaining to audiences.
“The circus has changed over the years,” Feld Entertainment CEO and Chairman Kenneth Feld told the reporters. “There’s no other entertainment that’s been around for this long that you could name. We’re older than baseball. We’re older than Coca-Cola. I don’t know how many times it’s been reimagined, reinvented, but I know we’ve probably done it six, eight times. We’re going to do it again without the elephants in a whole different way. Then we’re going to do it again and we’re going to do it again and we’re going to do it again.”
Even though the circus isn’t Feld’s most popular entertainment offering, the company considers itself “stewards of an important legacy” and it is an “inspiration for everything they do,” because technology is making it harder for live events to amaze people.
“Somehow, over the past few decades, we’ve forgotten how to be impressed by physical achievements, incredible feats that no normal person can do,” the reporters wrote. “Nowadays, you go to Times Square, and you don’t see people juggling and eating fire and doing delightful busking; you see people in superhero and Elmo costumes doing nothing but existing off versions of something that appears in movies, on TVs and in toy stores.
“The circus is the last bulwark against all that,” the reporters conclude. “Which is why the Felds are driven to demonstrate, once again, what is magical and singular about it.”
For more about Feld, the circus, and its performers, please read “Running Away With the Circus” in The New York Times.
(Image: Darrell Miller/Creative Commons)
