Tag: circus

Abra­ham and I have been to two dif­fer­ent cir­cus­es this year. In May we saw the Kel­ly Miller Cir­cus in Con­nersville, Indi­ana. Last Wednes­day we saw the Rin­gling Broth­ers and Bar­num & Bai­ley Cir­cus in Cleve­land, Ohio. Here’s a com­par­i­son.

Sub­jec­tive Val­ue Com­par­i­son Between Two Cir­cus­es
Met­ric Kel­ly Miller Cir­cus Rin­gling Broth­ers and Bar­num & Bai­ley Cir­cus Advan­tage
 Num­ber of Rings 1  3  Kel­ly Miller
 Tick­et Price  $43 (3 tick­ets, front row  seat­ing)  $39 (3 tick­ets, mid­dling seats on dis­count  night)  Kel­ly Miller
 Tiger Show  Ener­getic tiger tricks  Too many tigers to trick  Kel­ly Miller
 Hot­ness of Cir­cus Girls  7 out of 10  8 out of 10 (but with more depth)  Rin­gling Broth­ers and  Bar­num  & Bai­ley
 Prox­im­i­ty to  Ele­phants  Abra­ham could have touched  their  trunks  Not so much  Kel­ly Miller
 Authen­tic­i­ty  Lots of hard work, pas­sion, pro­fes­sion­al but  not “pro­fes­sion­al”.  Man­aged, brand-pro­tect­ed busi­ness. Slick, cor­po­rate  & prof­it-max­i­mized.  Kel­ly Miller
 Clowns (fun­ny)  Yes  Not so much  Kel­ly Miller
 Clowns (scary)  No  I was sus­pi­cious  Kel­ly Miller
 Clowns (cute)  No  The girl clown was cute.  Rin­gling Broth­ers and  Bar­num  & Bai­ley
 Abra­ham’s  enjoy­ment lev­el  Mind: Blown  More inter­est­ed in sno-cones  Kel­ly Miller
 Web­sites  Basic, sim­ple, ugly design.  Flash intro and auto-play­ing music that you  can’t turn  off.  Kel­ly Miller

Obvi­ous­ly, the Kel­ly Miller Cir­cus was a bet­ter deal and a bet­ter time, despite the fact that it does­n’t have the pro­duc­tion val­ues, deep pock­ets, or brand­ing of RBaB&B. Let’s hear it for the lit­tle guy!