For four generations the Carson & Barnes Circus family has toured North America with our most traditional of American Big Top Circuses.

Barbara Miller Byrd and Geary Byrd own and manage Carson & Barnes Circus on a day to day basis. Their daughters, Kristin Byrd Parra and her husband, Gustavo; Traci Byrd Cavallini and her husband Julio, also fill various managerial functions as the family’s continuing legacy of ownership.

Carson & Barnes brings first class family entertainment to all parts of America — small towns to big cities, urban America and Native America, border to border and coast to coast. Each year we search for the best acts from around the globe and we present them along with our world famous animal acts, to produce the World’s Biggest Big Top show.

D. R. and Isla Miller were founders and co-owners of many circuses for 62 years of their marriage and partnership. Each brought an inimitable style to their management and support of their circus family and operation.

D.R.’s father, Obert Miller, developed a “dog and pony” show in 1937 in Smith Center, Kans. which began the family’s lifetime of living and working in the circus. In today’s Carson & Barnes Circus, one sees D.R.’s vision, his penchant for bigness, his delight in circus and his love of animals. One also sees Isla’s business acumen, her love of style and beauty, her warmth and caring for her circus family.

Over 30,000 performances have been presented to audiences numbering in the millions.

In addition to producing over 30,000 performances they founded a circus dynasty based on honesty, respect and hard work. Isla passed away in October 1998. D.R. passed away in September 1999. They both are greatly missed

In 1825, Joshuah Purdy Brown (1802?-1834) revolutionized the circus business and other traveling shows. He held his performances under a large, portable canvas tent. This innovation allowed shows to move between cities quickly and easily, go anywhere, stay as long or short as they desired, and perform rain or shine. With this flexibility, Brown’s show could perform and have an income six days per week. In 1825, the first season that Brown and his partner Lewis Bailey used a tent, they traveled from Wilmington, Delaware, into Virginia, stopping at Alexandria, Fredericksburg, Richmond, Norfolk, Lawrenceville, and Lynchburg, and then up the Shenandoah Valley to Maryland and Pennsylvania. All of these shows were performed under a tent: the only indoor location that season was in Washington, DC.

By the mid 1830s, the canvas tent system had become commonplace.

By the mid 1830s, the canvas tent system had become commonplace. With this mobility, owners now could schedule shows in 150 or more different cities in a season, performing six days a week, but they now needed wagons to transport the equipment as well as the horses to pull the wagons and personnel to drive the wagons and erect the tent. The tent was a mixed blessing — it allowed the circus to show in smaller places, but created a greater overhead. Thayer remarks that, “the tent added to the proprietor’s daily expense, and changed the relationship between himself and his employees. Instead of erecting costly arenas he now had the cost of wagons to carry his property, of horses to pull the wagons and of teamsters to drive them.

The performers and musicians, theretofore on their own as to food and lodging, now traveled constantly with the company.” A circus now needed a reliable income to offset the constant daily expenses. Greater mobility meant that circuses could move faster but it also meant that owners had less time to build up audiences and bring in revenue. There was growing pressure to bring in audiences quickly and efficiently. As tents grew bigger, the performers became more removed from the audience and the acts had to be more eye-catching and more spectacular, which of course added to the expense of running and moving the show.

the tent changed the relationship between the audiences and the performers

A more interesting consequence of this change, however, is how the tent changed the relationship between the audiences and the performers. Initially, circuses were intimate shows and audiences were quite close to the performers in structures that were often custom-built in that city. The show stayed around for weeks or months at a time, mingling with the local populace. Audiences would become familiar with the performers and shows would offer a variety of acts to bring people back in. If the circus used permanent buildings, it might share the facilities with theaters companies or music performances. These buildings might also be quite intimate and the audience would be able to see small details of each act. When the American circus broke away from this type of setting, the relationship between audience and performer lost some of its intimacy and relied more heavily on large-scale effects and more generic acts that would please larger groups. European circus performances, on the other hand, did not adopt canvas tents but continued to use existing buildings well into the 20th century. Consequently, European circuses have much closer ties to theatre and have maintained a greater emphasis on nuanced relationships between performer and audience.

Circus Marketing

The arrival of the tent also complicated the already difficult task of promoting shows to prospective audiences. Advertising materials had to provoke excitement and anticipation of seeing a show that was around for one day only. The printed bills that were used in the 18th, 19th and 20th century had to give the populace the necessary information to catch their attention; namely, title, date, and featured acts. John Bill Ricketts used printed bills to advertise his show. Pepin & Breschard used printed bills depicting an equestrian on a horse waving American flags. By 1822 with the first steam-powered press, the cost of printing of the posters could be reduced and the output of posters was increased.

By the mid-nineteenth century, the American circus had reached a level of popularity in the country that no other form of entertainment could rival. This was also true with its advertising. In the summer of 1983 edition of The Quarterly Journal of the Library of Congress, Richard Flint states: “The circus led the way in large, illustrated newspaper advertisements and virtually developed the outdoor advertising business by the use of huge, colorful posters. As early as 1833 a New Hampshire editor noted that the traveling shows were operating ‘on a new plan … in order to excite the curiosity of the people…. Large show bills measuring seven or eight feet in length proportionately made with cuts representing the remarkable docility of the lions and the great feats of the monkey’ were now to be seen in the towns” (p. 214-215). As early as the 1830s, large presses allowed the printers to combine large poster together to produce billboard-size posters.

Reprinted from The Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities, Copyright © 2004 by Lavahn G. Hoh and the University of Virginia

by Edward Southerland

The sun hadn’t made its way into the morning sky when the wake up man started around the encampment blowing the horn on his truck. Five thirty comes early, especially when the troupe has only been on the road for a few days. There’s time for a quick cup of coffee and a doughnut at the Pie Car and then it’s time to roll. The circus is on the move, making the next jump.

 

Carson & Barnes Circus, the biggest outfit operating under canvas in the United States, moves with the dawn and heads down the road to the next stop where it will set up once again. Then it’s on to the next town, and the next. Over 200 times during the 2012 season, Carson & Barnes Circus will pick and move, set up and perform until sometime in fall when they come home to Hugo, Okla.

Managing a traveling circus is like picking up a small town and moving it every day.

It’s like picking up a small town and moving it every day. The circus travels about 50 miles per day.  “We carry around 200 people with us,” said Barbara Miller Byrd, representing the third generation of her family that has owned and operated the circus since 1937.

“We have somewhere between seventy and eighty vehicles; it’s a large operation, especially to move every day.” There’s also a water department, an electrical department, four trucks of a rolling garage to keep everything working, and more.

Putting Up the Big Top

A hydraulic crane lifts the big top from its storage compartment in a specially-designed truck and the metal superstructure rises to lift the star spangled big top skyward. The big top tent is just over 142 feet long by 131 feet wide. Roustabouts still drive metal-collared wooden stakes into the ground to steady the tent.

The Big Top Tent is over 142 feet long by 131 feet wide.

No longer can young boys earn a pass by hauling water to the elephants, but the public is welcome to come watch the show before the show. “We encourage it,” said Byrd. “Sometimes if the kids come out in the morning they remember that more than the performance. It gives you a lot of pride to see the little kids out here with their mouths wide open. They just can’t believe this whole little city is going up.”

All over the grounds, men are erecting smaller tents and equipment for the sideshows and the midway. “Ride the elephant! Get your picture made on a camel!” the signs exhort.

It takes about four hours to get everything up and ready. From above it must look like an army of very well disciplined ants hard at work. “We get tickled when the media refers to something being a ‘circus,’” said Byrd. “A circus is a very organized precise business. It has to be to do what we do, to transport all the people, all the animals, and all these vehicles to a new town every day and set up and do a show. There’s nothing erratic or crazy, except maybe what goes on in the ring.”

The animals are the heart and soul of the experience and circus folks know that. The animals come first.

Some would disagree. There are those, often misinformed, who don’t like the way the circus uses animals, but they would be hard pressed to validate their claims of mistreatment. The animals are the heart and soul of the experience and circus folks know that. The animals come first.

The Circus Tradition

“The circus was founded in 1937 by my grandfather, father and my uncle,” said Byrd. “The original name was Al G. Kelly & Miller Bros. Circus. In the sixties, my father went into partnership with a man named Moore and changed the name to Carson & Barnes. He just liked the way it sounded.” That’s right. There never was a Mr. Carson or Mr. Barnes. I guess that’s showbiz for you.

There never was a Mr. Carson or Mr. Barnes. I guess that’s showbiz for you.

 

A Legacy of Respect for an Endangered Breed

“We have three elephants traveling with us,” said Byrd. “We actually own twenty-six, but we have a large breeding compound in Hugo called the Endangered Ark Foundation, and we leave the elephants of breeding age at home. We have the second largest genetic pool for Asian elephants in North America. We want to do our share to see the species doesn’t die off.”

Carson & Barnes even plans its tour route with the animals foremost in mind. They travel the southern tier of states in the winter to avoid the cold weather and move north with the spring to arrive in Minnesota and Wisconsin in July and August, avoiding the scorching summers of the South. In addition to the three pachyderms the circus has a pigmy hippopotamus, camels, exotic goats, zebras, llamas, horses, and dogs. Imagine ringing up the tab for that menagerie at your local grocery store.

The show lasts about two hours and folks will see, “…everything they expect to see in a tented circus,” said Byrd. “We have the flying trapeze with the daring young man (and woman) who does the triple somersault, the elephants, jugglers, clowns, acrobats, performing horses and dogs.

“You can bring your seventy-eight-year-old mother or your seven-year-old and know they won’t see anything that is embarrassing. It is 100-percent PG-rated and 100-percent fun.”

Alex “The King of Circus Comedy” Returns

The headliner of this year’s show is Alex Acero, “The King of Circus Comedy” returning for his third year with Carson & Barnes Circus.  Acero, born in Brazil, comes from a long line of circus performers.  From his days on Clown Alley with Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey Circus, to a show stage on The Boardwalk at Atlantic City, Alex presents a fun, energetic, gravity-defying performance that’s full of laughs.

Investing in Each Community

Audiences may not realize it, but Carson & Barnes Circus brings much more than entertainment to each community. Before the circus breaks camp they will have spent thousands of dollars with local merchants. One hundred and fifty bales of hay, 1,500 gallons of diesel fuel, food for the animals and the troupe, enough to prepare four hundred meals, and what ever else is needed for a town of two hundred have to be brought in each day, every day, seven days a week.

The circus brings more than entertainment to each community.

With performers and workers from the USA, Canada, Mexico, South America, Europe and Asia there are a lot of different nationalities representing the Carson & Barnes Circus family.

And indeed the circus is a family. “The circus is more than a job. You’ve got to have a love for the circus and a desire to do something different and exciting,” said Byrd. “You meet a lot of great people and work with a bunch of good hard-working people.

“It’s a great place to raise children. I was raised in the circus; my daughters were raised in the circus and they both have sons being raised in the circus. It’s a real caring, loving community that we have here. It’s just a great environment.”