Tag: comparison

Abra­ham and I have been to two dif­fer­ent cir­cus­es this year. In May we saw the Kel­ly Miller Cir­cus in Con­nersville, Indi­ana. Last Wednes­day we saw the Rin­gling Broth­ers and Bar­num & Bai­ley Cir­cus in Cleve­land, Ohio. Here’s a com­par­i­son.

Sub­jec­tive Val­ue Com­par­i­son Between Two Cir­cus­es
Met­ricKel­ly Miller Cir­cusRin­gling Broth­ers and Bar­num & Bai­ley Cir­cusAdvan­tage
 Num­ber of Rings1 3 Kel­ly Miller
 Tick­et Price $43 (3 tick­ets, front row  seat­ing) $39 (3 tick­ets, mid­dling seats on dis­count  night) Kel­ly Miller
 Tiger Show Ener­getic tiger tricks Too many tigers to trick Kel­ly Miller
 Hot­ness of Cir­cus Girls 7 out of 10 8 out of 10 (but with more depth) Rin­gling Broth­ers and  Bar­num  & Bai­ley
 Prox­im­i­ty to  Ele­phants Abra­ham could have touched  their  trunks Not so much Kel­ly Miller
 Authen­tic­i­ty Lots of hard work, pas­sion, pro­fes­sion­al but  not “pro­fes­sion­al”. Man­aged, brand-pro­tect­ed busi­ness. Slick, cor­po­rate  & prof­it-max­i­mized. Kel­ly Miller
 Clowns (fun­ny) Yes Not so much Kel­ly Miller
 Clowns (scary) No I was sus­pi­cious Kel­ly Miller
 Clowns (cute) No The girl clown was cute. Rin­gling Broth­ers and  Bar­num  & Bai­ley
 Abra­ham’s  enjoy­ment lev­el Mind: Blown More inter­est­ed in sno-cones Kel­ly Miller
 Web­sites Basic, sim­ple, ugly design. Flash intro and auto-play­ing music that you  can’t turn  off. Kel­ly Miller

Obvi­ous­ly, the Kel­ly Miller Cir­cus was a bet­ter deal and a bet­ter time, despite the fact that it does­n’t have the pro­duc­tion val­ues, deep pock­ets, or brand­ing of RBaB&B. Let’s hear it for the lit­tle guy!