I have to also say the Argentinian performers (especially the guys) are absolutely top notch - the juggling is insane - that guy pushes the limits every time I’ve seen it and always seems to give it 100% (every time I see juggling at another circus it is never as good)

To begin with, I didn’t say three juggling acts but rather three acts which involved juggling. Only one of these was specifically a juggling act and was in fact very good. I commented originally that the specific juggling performance only had a few (in my opinion quite acceptable) mistakes, and it was a valuable addition to the show.

Two other acts which were not specifically focussed on juggling involved attempts at it and failed however; the first was a balancing act with a performer balancing on a ball, stacks of small platforms balanced on a cylinder, etc. He did a very good job of the balancing part of the act but ended with an attempt at juggling which wasn’t so succesful; personally I’d suggest he may have been better simply leaving it out until he had more practice, although had it been succesful it would have been an excellent addition to his performance. The other act involving an attempt at juggling was from a woman who was balancing on a horizontal beam in an aerial performance - once again, her performance was quite good except for the addition of a completely unsuccesful attempt at juggling. It may well be that both of these performers had an off night, and this alone certainly wouldn’t have given me a negative view of the performance.

I think that’s all the points I wanted to respond to from general conversation, so I’ll move on to answering the three questions from Sammie now:

1: No, there wasn’t a hoops act. If one of the performers normally does this I think it would make an excellent addition to the show, preferably in place of one of the acts from the clown.

2: There were a few aerial acts:
The first was by a female performer on a ring suspended in the air. About the first half of the act — although very well performed — was pretty basic gymnastics apart from the fact that it was performed in the air, the impressiveness of which was diminished somewhat by an excessively obviously visible safety line (although the performers certainly shouldn’t take uneccesary risks!). A few select parts of this performance were however quite skilled, and overall I’d consider it to be a good performance and a worthwhile part of the show. This act in particular however was one that suffered from an inappropriate choice of costume, as I probably wouldn’t have thought anything negative of it had the performer not had to quite obviously adjust her outfit whilst suspended in front of the crowd several times; even one or two adjustments may have been acceptable, but with the count of times she had to do this it’s quite clear the chosen outfit simply didn’t fit, which is a shame given she performed a later aerial act in a perfectly acceptable outfit with no unsightly adjustments required.

Another aerial act early in the performance involved a male performer using a shorter pair of cloth straps and was very well performed. No major objections to this act, it was quite entertaining.

The same performer as the first ring act later returned for an act on cloth ribbons, this time with a much more appropriate choice of costume; the performer in question in obviously good at what she does, and I’m disappointed at being forced to mention costuming as a negative in her other performance. This particular act was one of the better of the night’s show and involved a series of the usual sort of tricks carried out in an aerial ribbons act, all very well performed.

Lastly, there was an act by a different female performer carried out on a suspended horizontal beam which largely consisted of an impressive head-stand balanced on the beam; twice normally, once with the beam swinging, and once with the beam spinning. This was an impressive, entertaining and well performed act. This was one of the acts where juggling was attempted unsuccesfully for some variation.

3: I think I’ve already answered your question about the juggling in my existing responses, so I won’t repeat myself here. I will however emphasise that the act specifically focussed on juggling was very well performed and quite entertaining.

Lastly, if I were to make some suggestions to this circus, they would be:
- Given the apparently new act and performers, it may be in your best interest to lower the price of admission by a small amount ($5?) across the board of different admission rates until such time as your act is more polished, at which time people may be more happy about having paid that amount. Again, this is only my own opinion, and it may well be that the majority of guests do not consider the price unacceptable.
- If an act doesn’t work, cut it from the performance for now. At present the only one I would really apply this to is the bubbles, and the comment I recieved from Sammie seems to support the idea that this is a regular failure. At the least you should not call a volunteer (especially a little girl) out from the crowd unless you’re at least reasonably confident of success, which cannot be the case given the total failure of the rest of this particular act. You can always add the act back in a later stage if after more practice you think it can be made to work.
- Try to choose costumes appropriately. I don’t think any of the performers are even close to being considered out of shape by any reasonable person, but this does not prevent the fact that if an outfit is simply too small it will create a negative image. Again, I think it’s a bad thing to even have to mention this, but unfortunately it creates a bad impression of the entire show. Appropriately fitting outfits aren’t that expensive and should be a relatively rare purchase - spend the money on it.
- Consider telling people that the circus is relatively new up front and that the act is new. Although I guessed that this may be the case there was no actual indication of such. If I had been expecting this I may have judged the quality of the acts less harshly as Sammie suggested in her comment.
- I’m willing to accept that it’s probably my own personal preference to dislike the extremely regular appearances of the only clown in the circus, but at the least you could refrain from repeating the same act (throwing the large inflated ball into the crowd) twice; once was enough.

I do hope this circus improves with time, and am quite sure that will be the case. I cannot however in good faith recommend any of my friends see it at present unless they’re willing to accept that it may be a sub-par experience when compared to the other acts currently in the local area.

Again, I’ve unfortunately no more time to spare right now, I’ll be back with those other responses later.

@Sammie: Sure, I may have just got them at a bad time; it was clear some of the performers were a bit nervous, but when things went right for them they were obviously quite talented and I hope things do improve for them. I actually guessed that they might be relatively new when watching the show, although there was no indication of such in the signage or introductions given.

Regarding the ring - no, there isn’t one; they use a stage instead. That wasn’t actually a complaint but simply an observation of the different setup. I actually think the format of having people seated at ground level around the stage rather than on tiered seating around a ring is potentially a good thing for them, as small children are sometimes scared of the possibility of falling through tiered seating.

I noticed the small number of performers you mention, and that’s fine as well. I would suggest however that rather than having practically every second act from the same clown they could simply make the whole performance a little shorter and drop one or two of those - having the inflated ball come out (especially with a small crowd where it wasn’t working as well as it could have) twice seemed particularly uneccesary. Again as mentioned in my original post, this may just be my personal dislike of some of the acts clowns put on rather than acrobatic performances and the like, and I’m sure that the clown may appeal more to others — children in particular.

I suspected the bubble act might have just suffered from an off night and think she should have given up on it sooner; certainly not dragged a little girl up on stage when none of the other attempted tricks had worked. This would have been an excellent addition to the performance if it had worked, but if what you say about it never working is true then it should really be cut from the performance - an entire act that just outright doesn’t work had a significant impact on my impression of the whole show. Perhaps if they can get it working reliably outside of the performance with more practice the bubbles could make a good addition to the performance in future.

I’m out of time now, but I’ll be back to respond to other points and to directly answer Sammie’s questions at a later stage.

Thanks for reading and for the responses!