
The Circus Leaves Town: Ringling Bros and Barnum and Bailey Circus to Close - sohkamyung
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/circus_leaves_town
======
RcouF1uZ4gsC
From the article: "In the year since the elephants left, Feld says circus
attendance dropped precipitously."

This is a great lesson to businesses in general - know if your critics are
actually your core customers. The overlap between people who protested
elephants and the people who attended the circus was pretty small. The company
ended up listening to a very vocal minority and then lost a lot of business
from the quiet group of customers for whom the elephants were the major draw
and who then stopped buying tickets.

This also applies to open source projects and brings to mind DHH's article
[http://david.heinemeierhansson.com/2012/rails-is-
omakase.htm...](http://david.heinemeierhansson.com/2012/rails-is-omakase.html)

~~~
csydas
I understand what you're trying to compare it to, but I don't think that this
is always a valid argument. If what attracts the core customers is wrong in
and of itself, it's not an excuse to continue it.

I have fond memories of the Circus Parade in Milwaukee when I was a child, but
it was relying on the animals to draw people in for the most part, and the
training done for the animals really isn't good. Vocal critics not being
attendees is somewhat irrelevant in this case (and in many cases), because the
core activity is what is wrong; it's not just a matter of preference.

When it comes to invidivual preferences, there is some wisdom to "appease the
core audience, ignore the rest". But there are a lot of cases that aren't as
neatly covered by such sentiment as some seem to think

~~~
jgalt212
> If what attracts the core customers is wrong in and of itself, it's not an
> excuse to continue it.

Tell that to all the illegal renters on AirBnB.

Edit: sorry that was a bit flip, but I don't think the conundrum is as easy as
either of you have posed it.

~~~
csydas
I'm sorry but I don't even know what you're referring to, else I'd respond
more completely. I can't really see the relationship between what you quoted
and what you wrote.

~~~
civilian
There are several cities (NYC, Berlin?) where it is/was illegal to rent your
apartment/condo for a short term, because then you're acting like a Hotel, but
you're probably not meeting any of the hotel regulations, and you're not
paying taxes that are specific to Hotels.

So. _> If what attracts the core customers is wrong in and of itself, it's not
an excuse to continue it._

"Being cruel to elephants" is to "Running a circus" as "Breaking Hotel laws in
your city" is to "Running an AirBnb listing"

Both of these things are something "Wrong" that are done as a core part of a
business.

Now, I have no idea what jgalt's actual conclusion is, his post was wrapped in
some combination of sarcasm and "well they do it too!!!". But his conclusion
is probably to open a single-man copper mine in the mountains.

~~~
csydas
Thank you for your take on it. I won't try to argue it since I feel it unfair
to make you defend a conclusion you yourself don't actually know.

------
Declanomous
An interesting theory I heard for why the circus folded now, rather than at
some later date, involves the age of the circus train.

Rail cars are 'certified' to run on Class 1 railroads for 40 years post-build,
and once they reach 40 years old they need to be inspected and have their
running gear rebuilt. This allegedly costs around $150,000 per car, and only
certifies the car for another 10 years. Based on the auction of the circus
train, the circus owns/owned 127 cars.

So while the circus might have been solvent, if a large number of the train
cars were coming up on a rebuild it might have been the straw that broke the
camel's back.

Here is a reddit thread discussing it a bit:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/trains/comments/5o3ih1/i_wonder_wha...](https://www.reddit.com/r/trains/comments/5o3ih1/i_wonder_what_will_happen_to_the_ringling_bros/)

~~~
Naritai
This is a great example, though, of why 'EBITDA' is such a terrible metric of
profitability. Depreciation (which is the way this rail car certification
would likely be accounted for) is a real (if deferred) cost.

~~~
dismantlethesun
It's not a terrible metric. It's only bad for companies who have high debt
loads, or companies who have to periodically upgrade costly equipment.

These downsides to EBITDA are well known and should weigh on the mind of
anyone who looks at the metric.

For a company that rents all its equipment, EBITDA is a pretty good metric.

~~~
dragonwriter
> It's not a terrible metric. It's only bad for companies who have high debt
> loads, or companies who have to periodically upgrade costly equipment.

Right, ignoring depreciation and debt service is only horrible for assessing
companies with significant depreciation or debt service.

> For a company that rents all its equipment, EBITDA is a pretty good metric.

Sure, if you don't have significant depreciation/amortization and debt
service, EBITDA is just an approximationation of EBT, which is a perfectly
good measure.

And EBT's a perfectly good measure even for companies _with_ debt service and
depreciating equipment.

------
issa
Whether you're an animal rights activist or not, the fact of the matter is
EVERYONE thinks it's wrong to abuse animals. People will go to great lengths
to pretend animal cruelty isn't happening and the circus relied on secrecy
over how its animals were treated to survive. Once video started coming out,
it was the beginning of the end.

If you haven't seen any of the undercover videos and have doubts, a quick
google search will find hundreds. For example:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECspj0daAlE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECspj0daAlE)

~~~
Arizhel
>Whether you're an animal rights activist or not, the fact of the matter is
EVERYONE thinks it's wrong to abuse animals.

That's not true. There's plenty of people who think animal cruelty and abuse
is just fine. There's no shortage of people who abuse animals, for instance,
so obviously they don't think it's wrong. They may not be a majority of the
population, but they exist.

~~~
issa
I think "plenty" is debatable. Most people are good at IGNORING animal cruelty
(ie: where did my veal dinner come from?), but it is the exception that people
actively think it's fine (dog fighting, etc). Once animal abuse is public
knowledge (especially against certain more-beloved animals) it is hard for
society to forgive. Sea World, the circus, puppy mills, etc. Those things are
all going away now.

------
83457
I don't think elephants actually added much to their show. I have taken my
kids twice in last few years... once with elephants and another one more
recently without and we definitely preferred the more recent one. If it all
comes down to elephants they should really have no problem staying in business
IMO. I even saw less protesters at the more recent one. Only reasoning I can
think of this not working is if without elephants they have to rely on more
humans and effects than before that may be more expensive to produce.

~~~
praneshp
Serious question: Is the elephant thing your view or your kids' also? I loved
the (now discontinued) Aladdin show at Disneyland, and the highlight of the
show (judging from the crowd's reaction) seemed to be when the 'elephant'
entered.

------
clintonb
I saw the last show for the "red team" in Providence, Rhode Island. While I
have seen a number of Cirque du Soleil (CdS) shows over the last 10 years, I
haven't seen Ringling Bros. (RB) in about 20 years. The difference I
immediately noticed was the ticket price. A CdS show ranges anywhere from $40
to $120. My seat at RB, on the sixth row, cost $55. I understand the desire to
keep the show accessible to all families, but the price disparity between the
two companies was huge. The production quality was good, but not as high as
that of CdS.

That said, I enjoyed the show and the fact that it is accessible to people at
most income levels. Audience members were permitted to go on the performance
floor 30 minutes before the show. We could interact with the performers, who
were doing a few mini-shows, and get a much closer look. That sort of access
costs over $100 at Cirque du Soleil.

Besides ticket price and production quality, another factor working against
Ringling Bros. is the fact that everyone lives on the train. Entire families
travel to every city. They have a school on the train. When everyone came out
at the end of the show, there were at least 200 people of varying ages—babies
to adults. That can't be cheap. I'm not sure if Cirque du Soleil does the same
for their performers.

------
jsrjenkins
Just my humble opinion, but I think the loss of the circus will actually not
be a great help to the conservation of these wonderful animals.

Elephants are in the public imagination largely due to the circus and the zoo.
We like elephants because we can actually go and see them, which makes us want
to keep them around. No one really does anything [donate, protest] about
certain endangered species, like the Saola because they aren't in the public
eye. Elephants, rhinoceros and Tigers have very extensive programs to protect
them, even large national parks, because there is large public support for
their conservation. The panda likewise would simply be a curiosity and
evolutionary dead end if it wasn't for human intervention.

Once the public doesn't even know what an elephant looks like, the public
support will diminish. Certainly there has been many abuses in the circus
[like in many other things human beings do], but I just hope that people don't
forget about the elephants. I would say that one of the reasons that they
haven't been hunted to extinction was due to the fact that many children
remember with fondness these wonderful animals, and that contact they had with
them was from the circus.

------
SpoilerAlert
A few of my friends have had similar experiences at the circus.

We all went when we were very young, so it's a whirlwind experience for kids.

Then as we got older -- like 8 or older -- it was better to go to the Zoo to
see the animals.

------
wehadfun
Last time I went to the circus it sucked. Half the show was on some TV with
cartoon animals. No one pays $$$ for a ticket $$$ for parking, $$$ for a cup
of soda to watch cartoons on a TV.

~~~
tclancy
It's just another industry that needs to be disrupted. I'm with you on what we
think of as "the circus", but there's no reason traveling entertainment can't
change. My daughter is just old enough to be interested so we took her to the
circus last year, but it was a circus put on by
[http://www.smirkus.org/](http://www.smirkus.org/) and it was terrific.
There's no attempt at professional gloss and it's not about selling plastic
crap (there's a bit but it's fundraising for the camp) ; it was just teenagers
from all around the country putting on a great performance.

~~~
smacktoward
It's already been disrupted, the disruptor is called Cirque du Soleil.

~~~
Arizhel
That's not a circus, it's a dance/art show.

~~~
dragonwriter
Circus has been an evolving art form for a long time (starting out 250 years
ago as pure equestrian shows); the contemporary circus genre of which _Cirque
de Soleil_ is one of the more popular examples is a fairly new development
with circus, but certainly recognizable as an example of it that has close
ties to it's immediate predecessors.

------
croon
Good riddance.

I've never liked the circus.

1) I know it's very individual, but when it comes to the arts (as opposed to
work), I've always liked soulful performance over replicability. I'd rather
take Bob Dylans or Tom Waits terrible singing (while excellent songwriting),
over kick-ass scales and guitar riffs of Dreamtheater (the circus in this
scenario).

While I can appreciate the skill behind Yngwe Malmsteens playing (or more
current examples), or doing flips 20 feet in the air between hanging in rings,
it's not something I enjoy watching/hearing.

2) Clowns are creepy, and I don't like slapstick.

3) The concept of the circus is 250 years old (in its modern form), and just
in the last 10 years you can see more impressive feats on youtube (or some
street corners), where everyone can get a venue.

4) Animal cruelty.

TLDR; It's antiquated and serves no purpose anymore (IMHO).

~~~
narrator
Cirque de Soleil is still around, but they cater to people who want a classy,
but more kid friendly, and arguably more consistently entertaining alternative
to theater.

~~~
baldfat
More kid friendly? I would say the opposite they are more adult friendly then
Ringling.

Also Glob Trotters, Disney on Ice and Marvel Live have taken over and owned by
the same company.

~~~
narrator
More kid friendly and consistently entertaining than theater, not Ringling. I
say more consistently entertaining, because you never know what you're going
to get with theater. .

~~~
baldfat
Theater is NEVER kid friendly unless it is Barney Live. Even the High School
Productions are kind of over the top for my taste. The last one I saw and I
knew better was "Rent" for High School. Then the next year was "Chicago".

