Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey circus on Saturday night announced that after 146 years of performances, it was folding its big tent forever.
In a statement on the company’s Web site, Kenneth Feld, the chief executive of Feld Entertainment, the producer of Ringling, said the circus would hold its final performances in May.
He cited declining ticket sales, which dropped even more dramatically after elephants were phased out from the shows last year.
“This, coupled with high operating costs, made the circus an unsustainable business for the company,” the statement said. “The circus and its people have continually been a source of inspiration and joy to my family and me.”
Stephen Payne, a spokesman for Feld Entertainment, said in an interview on Saturday night that the closing would affect about 400 cast and crew members.
“We looked at the performance in 2016 and advance tickets sales in 2017, and we decided it was not a viable business model,” he said.
“There isn’t any one thing,” Feld told reporters. “This has been a very difficult decision for me and for the entire family.”
Ringling has two touring circuses this season and is to perform 30 shows until May. Major stops include Atlanta, Georgia; Boston, Massachusetts; Brooklyn, New York; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Washington.
The final shows are to be on May 7 in Providence, Rhode Island, and May 21 at the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale, New York.
An estimated 10 million people go to a Ringling circus each year.
Feld said that transporting the show by rail and other circus quirks — such as providing a traveling school for performers’ children — are throwbacks to another era.
“It’s a different model that we can’t see how it works in today’s world to justify and maintain an affordable ticket price,” he said.
The Feld family bought Ringling in 1967.
Ringling has been targeted by campaigners who said forcing animals to perform is cruel and unnecessary, leading to the removal of the elephants, among the most popular features of the performances. The company sent its animals to live on a conservation farm in Florida.
On Twitter on Saturday night, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, which campaigned for the elephants’ removal, heralded what it called “the end of the saddest show on earth.”
The elephants’ connection to New York dates to 1883, when circus founder P.T. Barnum offered to test the Brooklyn Bridge, which had just opened, by having elephants walk across it, the Web site Ephemeral New York reported.
The authorities turned him down, but a year later, in a publicity stunt worthy of Barnum, elephants and other animals marched across the bridge.
In more recent times, the arrival of the circus in New York has been announced with a ritual parade of elephants through the Midtown Tunnel.
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