Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus – The Greatest Show on Earth.
The advertising-skeptical and exaggeration-sensitive no doubt interpret the familiar tag line as hyperbole; but based upon our family’s experience opening night at the Richmond Colisseum, the description’s accurate.
Setting the tone for the evening’s main events, the All-Access Pre-show (included in ticket price!) the hour preceding the show is not to be missed.
Where else can you fraternize freely with clowns?
Shake your booty with a show girl?
Assume the role of ringmaster?
Sit astride a cycle that a mere two hours later will be racing at breakneck speed along with seven others inside a seemingly way-too-small steel sphere?
Observe an elephant artist in action?
The pre-show hour passes all-too-quickly, and seats are rapidly taken.
In truly circus-suitable fashion, the national anthem is sung…
…and the spectacle begins.
During the show, our son whisper-asked, “Wouldn’t it be great to ride an elephant?”
Our daughter gazed upward appreciatively at the grace and daring of the sphere-contained “sirens.”
After 2+ hours of awe-inspiring entertainment (not including the pre-show!), as we were leaving the arena, a small girl clutching a new plastic elephant tugged my coat and asked excitedly, “What was your favorite part?” With enthusiasm, I shared mine. She shared hers.
Traveling home with my own family in the car, we each animatedly shared what thrilled us, what amazed us, what amused us, what we loved…and what we won’t soon forget.
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages, the Greatest Show on Earth is in Richmond. Please don’t miss it.
