Even though the Cole Bros Circus did not preform at the Cladius Crozet Park as planned the change of venue allowed the circus to open last night in Stuarts Draft. It was about a 30 minute drive from Charlottesville to the Circus. You take 65 W to Exit 91 (right past Waynesboro) and when you turn left off the exit you’ll see signs and the enormous tent. I’ve never been to a tent circus, and didn’t really know what to expect, but it was so much fun. I would definitely recommend driving out to see it. There’s a show tonight, Wednesday and Thursday night at 4:30 and 7:30. It lasts about 2 hours with a 13 minute(very precise) intermission.
The opening act was the motorcycles in a cage. The cage was really small and even one motorcycle seemed like a lot, somehow they did it with 3, it was pretty impressive. The acrobats did some neat tricks, then a lady with her trained dogs showed the dogs off. She could make the dog ride on top of a mini horse and jump so high through hoops, it was pretty funny. Then there were some dancing girls, they each had a rope ladder and did a choreographed dance where they climbed and swung in the air with the main girl in the middle of the show. The main girl(Svetlana) spun and danced with two pieces of material holding her above the crowd as she danced and twisted.
The second half of the show was more focused on the animals. But, one act showed two girls dancing in the air suspended only by their hair. Their hair was the harness, the girls attached their hair harnesses to each other and danced in the air, it looked painful to me. Then there were dancing camels and the elephants were amazing. The camels spun and moved in a line, but the elephants sat, laid, stood on their hind legs, and one carried the performer in his mouth as she instructed them.
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I would recommend spending the extra $3 to upgrade your ticket to a reserved seat. The general admission $17 dollar ticket puts you on the end with bench seats behind 2 poles where you can’t really see anything(and they packed the people in in that section.) We had $5 off coupons and did the regular admission, but when we saw the seats went to upgrade to the “reserved” seats. There really wasn’t anyone there so I didn’t understand the reserved seating, the lady said the seats in front of us were taken. But, we sat in the 3rd row and no one sat in front of us. The big time circus comes to the JPJ in December, but you probably won’t be getting that close to the performers and for the price I thought it was great!
What’s your favorite act at the circus? Am I the only one that feels sorry for the animals? These animals looked well fed but it still makes me sad.
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Darn it. I’m sorry I missed it.
Where’d you get the coupons?
They sent the tickets to Cloudbrain, but they were only good for opening night.
Why won’t something like this come to downtown Charlottesville. I feel like they could rake it in. How big of a parking lot do they need to set up their tent?
I remember when the Circus would come to town in Norfolk when I was a kid they would have this psuedo-parade of all the animals and circus people from the train they arrived on to the circus location. It was pretty cool – and free.
This is too big of a production to just set up shop right in Charlottesville. The tent has 3 peeks, so bigger than most wedding tents, plus all the outside materials(I would assume most the circus people stay in RVs on site), and wouldn’t it be illegal to keep elephants and camels(exotic animals) in city limits? But, I think they were trying for closer to Charlottesville than Fisherville. Crozet fell through, but it would seem like a lot more people would attend if they set up at McIntire!