Remembering Circus Report Founder Don Marcks: Into the 1980s, Thriving and Diving Through the Last Great Circus Decade

Fifth in a series on my friend  Don Marcks and his The Circus Report

October 25, 1984:  “I wish I could offer you a job with CR should you return to the Bay Area.  Am not sure I could pay what you might need and deserve."

In the paper’s peak years, Don now and then employed a part timer, usually a student “just out of school,” but he found them to be undependable. His dependable mom was always there to help out with folding, stapling and stamping fresh sheets  off the press for assembly and a trip to the local post office.  One of the postal clerks showed Don support and compassion, and he would eventually marry her.

His greatest challenge were the never ending struggles to sustain circulation.  He sent out free copies to new members of the various circus clubs, hit the lots with samples.  His circulation high, this number sticks in my brain, may have been around 2,400.  I doubt that any of the circus magazines ever matched that.

Fickle Subscribers 

October, 5 1984: “Oh, I forgot to tell you. I’ve lost almost 300 subscribers,  so I guess I have to figure out something to improve and make CR a bit more appealing.  That’s a pretty big loss over the last few month.  Wouldn't think it was due to my having been laid up, but never can tell."
                      
As a news source, how good a job did Circus Report do?  On the plus side, the routes  were outstanding, the reporting equally so when he picked up from AP stories about mishaps under the big top (such as the Toby Tyler seating collapse), and the animal rights movement. He did not shield readers from any of these controversies or misfortunes. From corrupt phone room operations in the 1970s. He did not hide from the world.  I admired that about him.

But How Many People Were in the Tent?

On the debit side, what  Don’s weekly most sorely lacked were attendance figures under our big tops. Of course, this was not primarily Don’s fault, for the American circus has never had its own Nielsen's — and I am dead sure never wanted  them.  Not then.  And certainly not now.  The old Billboard, edited by Tom Parkinson,  did a far better job of a least estimating crowd size on the lots.  Nothing was more compelling to my young eyes than the headlines on the first page of its Circuses section.  Example, those in the August 6, 1955 number:

Chicago Attendance Poor For Ringling; Plan to Cut Prices ... Beatty Score Well at Vancouver Stand ... Truck Delays Hit King; Crowds Fair ... Polack's Strong Spots Make Up for Decreases ... Kelly-Miller Going Strong on Extensive Wisconsin Tour .. 

July 31, 1954: Cincinnati Gives R-B Strong Two-Day Biz.  As reported,  "Show registered one-third filled houses for the two matinees but racked up capacity business for both night shows."

To Review or Not to Review?

Sorry to say,  rosy Circus Report reviews could be numbingly predictable. And predictability does not make for must-read news.  Don fell in line with other fan publications, afraid to alienate his core subscriber base.  He once complained to me about all of the glowing write-ups he was getting of Circus Vargas.  He did not want to print them all, but he probably did.  Another time, he told me of having received a review of Vargas.  “It wasn’t very good, so I didn’t print it.”

Feb. 27, 1966: “I know that you feel things should be iron clad in review with positive like or dislike.  I’m inclined to present the facts and let the reader decide what he thinks.  Guess that I might not make a reviewer for I just like the shows too much.”

He wanted “better reports on shows and such.”   He addressed a subject that would regularly dog him,  that he could never fully resolve, writing to me that it was “also too bad, like the one review when the fellow says the bad was bad that so much uproar results.  It would seem that if it were true you ought to be able to say so.”

He did share with me his unease over rah-rah notices, and stories that went on and on, but he was beholden to a loyal base of contributors, who supplied the necessary content.  He was skittish about asking  writers to cut back on excess.  

Another force that kept him playing it safe were the circus owners themselves,  who took out the ads and were not accustomed to what we might call objective reporting.

Next: The Invisible Red Pen of Circus Oowners ... The Heartbeat of Billy Barton  ...  The  Invasion of Cirque du Soleil  ....

first posted 12.19.19