Last night was opening night at the Circus in Cleveland. It was the first time to attend the circus for both of my children and it had been years since my husband or I had attended a circus.
Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey presents
Zing Zang Zoom, a "fun-filled magic merges with traditional circus arts".
The show actually starts an hour before the show with Clown College - an all-access pre-show, where anyone with a ticket can come down to the floor and take part. There were opportunities to take pictures with circus performers, try on jackets from the wardrobe and lots of audience participation - in magic tricks, tightrope walking and more. My kids both had a great time with this. Neither were chosen to participate, but they enjoyed watching it all. We didn't get to see it because it was on the other side of the floor, but they even have a pair of elephants that demonstrate their ability to paint! And, one lucky guest, who registers, can win that painting.
Then, everyone is directed up to their seats so the "Greatest Show on Earth" can get started. It was full of magic, music and mayhem. Interspersed with the regular circus acts were magic acts. We got to see an elephant disappear, people sawed in half and more. Again, there was audience participation, as members of the audience were brought down to the floor to play musical chairs, children were given the chance to make their parent's levitate and more.
There are so many amazing elements to the show - the high wire acts and other suspended gymnastic demonstrations, the elephants, the horses and zebras, the doggies doing tricks, the tigers, the clowns. The tricks that they had the elephants, doggies, horses and zebras, and elephants do never fail to amaze me. Watching them dance in a choreographed fashion. The way they sit up like a person or walk on their hind legs. I always like when the elephants line up one behind the other and put their front legs on the back of the elephant in front of them.
For me the time went incredibly fast. When they took the intermission after a full hour of performance, I was amazed to realize it had already been a full hour. After the intermission, they returned and put on another 50 minutes of the show. If you count the pre-show, that is about 2 hours and 45 minutes of entertainment for the family...not bad.
My daughter loved the show. When there was singing and dancing, she was up in front of her chair singing and dancing along. Other times, she was sitting in her chair and telling the bad guy, "Mr. Gravity" to leave. It was sort of cute the way she would get upset whenever Mr. Gravity appeared on the scene, telling him to "leave mean guy". I asked her at one point if she was enjoying the show, and when she looked at me and smiled, I knew she was.
My son enjoyed the show, but was not feeling well. It was part exhaustion, the show ended nearly 2 hours after their regular bed time, and part the start of a cold.
After the show, I asked my kids what their favorite part of the show was. My son's response, "Everything." I asked if there was one thing better than the rest and he decided it was Alex, the ring leader. He did many of the magic tricks that we saw and that is my guess as to why he was his favorite. Of course, "me too" also thought that Alex was her favorite.
It is not too late to take advantage of the special offer on tickets for your family to the circus. As a special offer to my readers, Mom Central and Feld Family Entertainment are excited to extend the following special family offers: You can purchase a 4-pack of tickets for weekday shows for only $44 or receive $4 off any weekend ticket by logging onto
Ticketmaster and entering coupon code: MOM. You can get additional weekday tickets at a price of $11 each, 4 tickets is the minimum required purchase for the discounted tickets. Zing Zang Zoom is playing at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland from October 21st through October 26th. There are both weekday and weekend evening shows at 7:30 pm and two weekend matinees on Saturday and Sunday at 11:30 am and 3:30 pm.
I did not receive any compensation for this post, but Feld Family Entertainment and Mom Central provided my family with a complimentary set of tickets to the circus so that I could review the performance and share my experience with my readers.
