Page 25 - The Outdoor Showman July-September 2022

CIRCUS NEWS
A “Try hard” circus quarter
Winter was a “try hard” quarter- year for Australian circuses.
Only if you travelled big distances, had a unique entertainment product, or did it better, you made money.
Harry Weber launched big, with THE Circus, direct from New Zealand, to Perth, then Adelaide. Big show, big ad budget, big mileages, and big rewards.
Darwin hot
Pepe Ashton’s “Infamous” played to consistent full houses in Townsville, Cairns and Darwin - then doubled back the 2,500- kms for another great season in Townsville and Cairns.
They’re trying to figure out how many full houses in a row they can have.
This 18-years-and-over adult cabaret circus has created its own niche market, with a lot of repeat business.
Jansen Grant has joined up, Merrill Ashton has left, and Ricky Ashton- Harrison left Darwin to join Stardust Circus in Sydney, a 4,000-kms trip. Still a distinctive, excellent program.
Infamous gambled on going to Darwin, following The Great Moscow Circus within weeks. Both took top dollar.
Moscowthentooktheloneliesttrip in Australia, “over the top”, 2,500 kms, stopping at Broome, Karratha and Geraldton, to open Perth for the winter school holidays.
Ashton’s two-tent setup at Maitland, NSW, 1090s.
How far can you go out bush?” The Great Moscow Circus went “over the top”, almost 4,000 kms from Darwin to Perth, May to Sept.
Greg Hall, the veteran genius promoter for various Edgley organisations over the last 30 years, has re-joined the Edgley- Weber group, after a two-year absence.
It was winter, and Darwin was the one place that was warm: tee shirts and shorts.
Flood, lockdowns
In Sydney, Stardust Circus has been three months on the one (expensive!) site, Rosehill Racecourse.
Most of it was Covid lockdown, and they couldn’t show at all. Then came the Sydney floods. They couldn’t show, couldn’t move, and no Councils letting circuses show on their boggy lots.
Jan Lennon says they’ve played Manly Blacktown and The Catholic Club, Liverpool, before heading back to quarters. Yarramundididnotflood, even though it fronts the badly-flooded Hawkesbury River. It’s up high.
Stardust beefed up its program
with the strongest line-up of young performers ever - most of them relations of the Lennon-West families.
Its opening features nine girl dancers on the ground, plus four aerialists. The Teeterboard act has extra performers, and new tricks, to beef up an already show-stopping number that’s been
a highlight for more than 24 years.
Cheryl Lennon, running the original Lennon Bros’ Circus, drove big distances in North Queensland, but the run paid off.
They’d had a rotten start to the year: three months in New South Wales, locked in
for weeks, courtesy of the Covid19 virus, and flooded out in the Northern Rivers.
Then they beat it up to the New England Tablelands, and copped sleet, snow, more Covid lockdowns, and almost nobody.
In true circus tradition, they jumped the best part of a thousand kms into Queensland, escaped most of the lockdowns, and started to take money.
That’s when it became clear that Australians were prepared to open their hearts and bankcards, after up to two years’ dreary lockdowns.
It got better as they went North, all the way to Cairns, sometimes close to Infamous. With both shows cheering each other on, there was some mutual tropical partying.
The drought had broken. “It’d want to,” Cheryl said.
Survival, snow
Shane and Nancy Lennon’s Hudson’s Circus, back on the road after almost two years of lockdowns, did well
in country NSW, to Wagga, Dubbo, Orange,BathurstandLithgow.
Only a few more lockdowns - and then snow! Consistent, with gale-force winds, sleet and rain. Strangely, the Central West still turned out for them. Rough work, but the locals liked them.
In freezing Victoria, Damien Syred’s Circus Royale was back, all around Melbourne: Altona, Fountain Gate (extended
with weather straight off Antarctica) Craigieburn, all fresh after two years of almost non-stop Covid lockdowns.
A curious thing happened at Dingley Dell.
Advert for this year’s Circus Festival, Mullumbimbi, NSW.
One of two Stardust Circus tri-axle pantechs at Sydney’s Rosehill Racecourse, Sydney, in July.
24 THE OUTDOOR SHOWMAN