The Ringling Bros. circus will soon be no more — but before it goes the company is putting on one last show in Long Island, New York, and will livestream it exclusively on ringling.com and Facebook Live.
“We wanted to give families around the world one last chance to experience ‘the greatest show on earth’ together,” Sam Gomez, the circus’s vice president of digital and relationship marketing, told the Associated Press.
The closure follows the last of its live elephant shows, which the company livestreamed a portion of in 2016. Declining attendance, high operating costs and battles with animal rights advocates were among the reasons for the circus’ decline.
The approximately 130-year-old company had its heyday in the early 1900s, when it purchased the Barnum & Bailey Greatest Show on Earth. It continued to flourish through the 1920s, but it never quite returned to its former glory after the Great Depression.
The last performance takes place on Sunday May 21st at 7pm ET/4pm PT and will be left up online for a short time afterwards. Find it on Facebook or the company’s own website.
Source: Associated Press Via: The Verge
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