May 21, 2017, was the final show of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus. Much has been written about this; the short version is that the name was too long for modern audiences. It began at 7pm EST and ran for a little over two hours. Then everyone went home.
Feld Entertainment will no doubt find new jobs for the acts and crew in their other productions, and likely there will be some other circus-like show popping up at some point. The point is this is the end of an era; while there will always be the connection of the tradition of the circus, the loss of the actual 149-year-old circus is a big moment in the life of a world.
