Your childhood circus is back in Fresno. It’s now the ‘greatest party’ on earth

Madison Embry is in the business of memory making.

As the pre-show host for the modernized Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey circus, she leads a Hype Crew as the first contact for audiences coming into the arena. It’s her job to be sure they are primed for the spectacle they’re about to experience.

“We’re singing. We’re dancing. We’re practicing how loud we can be,” says Embry, talking on the phone from the circus’ stop in Norfolk, Virginia, in advance of a four-day run at Save Mart Center arena that starts July 2.

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 “Out of This World” 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’ signature attractions; its elephants.

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 “anti-circus” and “anti-elephant” rules made the show difficult to produce.

Feld Entertainment, which produces Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey and Disney on Ice, Monster Jam and others, had retired the elephant performers a few months prior and was looking to reinvent the circus for modern audiences.

The new, elephant-free circus lasted for a year before declining ticket sales forced the circus to shut down in 2017.

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 “incredible feats that push the limits of human potential and create jaw-dropping moments,” Feld Entertainment said, at the time.

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’ resident DJ Lucky Malatsi.

“It’s not only the greatest show on earth,” Embry says.

“It’s the greatest party on earth.” 

But it still holds to the wonder of the Ringling Bros. legacy, says Ashley Zimmerman, an aerialist and trapeze artist with the tour.

“It’s just such a household name,” she says.

And it’s history that conjures deep nostalgia. For instance, the year Zimmerman was born, the circus was giving out tickets as part of an anniversary celebration. It was a birthday present of sorts, good for one circus performance and redeemable at any time in the child’s life.

Zimmerman still has that ticket, somewhere, she says.

More importantly, she has the memory.

That’s the power of Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey.

“In a world where you can just open your phone, there is nothing like live entertainment,” says pre-show host Embry.

“At the heart of it, it’s gathering with your family to share that time together. While watching humans do things that you just did not know was possible,” she says. “That is at the heart of what we do and the memories that we create.”

Hosting duties aside, that’s the job.

“I literally just get to watch core memories being made, and the sparkle in these kids eyes. Every single day.”

This story was originally published July 2, 2026 at 5:03 AM with the headline "Your childhood circus is back in Fresno. It’s now the ‘greatest party’ on earth."