Sun 30 Jun 2002
Circus Aldoni
Posted by Ken Atherton under germany
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Last weekend, the circus came to town in Niedereschach. Don’t get too excited– it isn’t like the Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey Circus. Niedereschach is small, and so was the circus that came to visit.
We decided to go see the circus on Sunday, just to see what it was like. The girls enjoyed it, as there was a wide selection of animals that paraded through the small ring.
A circus in Germany is usually a family owned and operated business, and these businesses seem to be plentiful. Circus Aldoni tours between March and October, and hits a different town every weekend during that time. They were actually just a few kilometers down the road to the east the previous weekend. This weekend, Circus Bingo is a few kilometers to our south, and next weekend a circus whose name I didn’t catch will be a few kilometers tro the north.
All of this activity makes the circus business difficult. Circus Aldoni had three shows in Niedereschach. At the show we attended on Sunday, I counted approximately 30 paid admissions. At an average admission price of about 7 euros each, that means the gate was about 210 euros. As best as we can tell, the other shows had about the same attendance. If you add in a small amount of revenue generated by concession and the “side shows” (consisting of a petting zoo of the circus animals and horse rides), the total take was about 300 euros, or about 900 total for the 3 shows.
From that amount of money, the whole troupe, plus donkeys, goats, dogs, camels, horses and a elephant have to be taken care of for a week, not to mention paying to transport the equipment to the next site, and paying rent for the place where the circus was set up.
The troupe consisted of 8 people, all of whom were probably related in some way. There was the father of the family, who was the ringmaster and a clown; there was his wife, who ran the ticket booth and played ringmaster while the father was clowning around; the son, who also played a clown and did all of the physical feats; the daughter, who was probably only about 14, seemed to work mostly behind the scenes; two other men who were responsible for set up; and finally, the sound man and the concession operator.
The son appeared to also be in training to take over the circus some day.
The show was enjoyable, in a rustic way. There was no polish to any of the acts; the animals often didn’t perform as expected, the sound man cut off songs at odd times, the concession operator walked around in a dirty undershirt, and the other costumes weren’t much better. On the other hand, the son did perform several feats of strength and balance, there was knife throwing, and the girls loved to see the animals, regardless of what they were doing.
It is a way of life that is fading out, though. Much as it has already faded out in the US, with only one major operator remaining and occasional visits by Cirque d’Soliel. It’s hard for these small acts to keep up with better financed (and plentiful) forms of entertainment. The golden age of the circus has passed.
Still, it was fun to visit, even if the circus is past its prime.
Carissa is still a little sensitive to noise, so she spent the entire first half of the show with her fingers in her ears. By
the way, can you tell who has been playing with the markers?
By the second half, she had gotten over the noise, and was ready to ride the horse by the end of the show.
Local Tags: carissa, celia, european circus, germany, ken, niedereschach, parade, sandi, zoo
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