Madison Embry is in the business of memory making.<\/p>\n
As the pre-show host for the modernized Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey<\/a> circus, she leads a Hype Crew as the first contact for audiences coming into the arena. It\u2019s her job to be sure they are primed for the spectacle they\u2019re about to experience.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re singing. We\u2019re dancing. We\u2019re practicing how loud we can be,\u201d says Embry, talking on the phone from the circus\u2019 stop in Norfolk, Virginia, in advance of a four-day run at Save Mart Center arena<\/a> that starts July 2.<\/p>\n This is the first time Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey has been in Fresno in a decade, and it comes as the 140-plus-year old brand looks to reinvent itself as action-packed, modern circus. When the circus came to town in 2016, it was on a test run for the \u201cOut of This World\u201d<\/a> tour. The show promised several new and exciting elements (an ice floor, an elaborate narrative, a smartphone app), but came without one of the circus\u2019 signature attractions; its elephants.<\/p>\n For years, the elephants had been a centerpiece of the circus; toured around the country via trains and paraded through the streets at each stop, including Fresno, where the arrival of the animals became a tradition unto itself. But concerns of animal cruelty and the implementation in many cities of \u201canti-circus\u201d and \u201canti-elephant\u201d rules made the show difficult to produce.<\/p>\n Feld Entertainment, which produces Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey and Disney on Ice, Monster Jam and others, had retired the elephant performers<\/a> a few months prior and was looking to reinvent the circus for modern audiences.<\/p>\n The new, elephant-free circus lasted for a year before declining ticket sales forced the circus to shut down in 2017.<\/a><\/p>\n It proved to be more of a hiatus and the circus returned in 2023. It was without the lions and tigers and anchored by a human-focused program displayed \u201cincredible feats that push the limits of human potential and create jaw-dropping moments,\u201d Feld Entertainment said,<\/a> at the time.<\/p>\n Now, along with the more traditional circus clowns and acrobats, the reimagined Ringling Bros. and Barum and Bailey Circus features a high-speed bicycle stunt troupe, a human cannonball, (multiple) extreme unicyclists and Bailey, a brightly colored quadruped robot dog. And the whole thing is set off with vibrant visuals, dynamic lighting and soundtrack of genre-bending musical mash-ups courtesy of the circus\u2019 resident DJ Lucky Malatsi.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not only the greatest show on earth,\u201d Embry says.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s the greatest party on earth.\u201d<\/p>\n But it still holds to the wonder of the Ringling Bros. legacy, says Ashley Zimmerman,<\/a> an aerialist and trapeze artist with the tour.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s just such a household name,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n