Amid the pandemic, circuses in Germany face a financial high-wire act

Car factories and hotels are once again springing back to life after the coronavirus lockdown, but large events remain taboo. For circus owners, with animals to feed, the uncertainty is hardest to bear.

Munich (dpa) – Martin Lacey’s monthly meat bill is a jaw-dropping 20,000 euros (21,969 dollars).

It isn’t all for him though – most goes to his 26 lions.

He and his wife, Jana Lacey-Krone, are directors of Circus Krone in the southern German city of Munich, and life has a whole different rhythm – and a new set of problems – amid the coronavirus pandemic.

In normal times, this would be high season for the world’s biggest circus, according to the European Circus Association.

Circus Krone has 260 employees, more than 100 animals and revenues in the millions. It’s high season, and all involved had reckoned with being on a 25-stop tour through Germany. After all, spring and summer is when circuses make their money, according to Lacey.

The circus had already hit the road when Germany’s lockdown came in March 2020. The team had set up the stalls and electricity in the tour’s second city and invested 120,000 euros in advertising alone, says Lacey. With a base to retreat to, the circus is luckier than some. Now they are home in Munich – but money remains a worry.

“For our normal operations, our daily costs are 35,000 euros. Right now, they’re around 12,000 euros,” says tour planner Harald Ortlepp.

The fuel would have cost 45,000 euros alone for the trip from Augsburg, where they had a performance behind them, to Mannheim, the next stop on the list and nearly 300 kilometres away.

The circus’ trucks carry a big top to seat an audience of 3,000, plus 46 horses, lions, zebras and camels.

Then comes a convoy of 60 caravans for the artists, animal caretakers, locksmiths, carpenters, mechanics, the fire department, four cooks and a teacher – plus tents, stables and other material.

“We’re a city within a city,” Keller says. “All we need is a patch of land, water and an audience.”

Employees are the biggest part of the budget, says Lacey-Krone. Of the regular 260, only 100 are still around – most are on short-time work, or went back home to Bogota, Moscow and Kiev. Only the 13 circus artists from Mongolia weren’t able to make it back home.

There are 300 circuses in Germany, says Ralf Huppertz, who heads the association of German circus companies (VDCU). Many are currently surviving on savings, loans, government aid or unemployment. Donations help – sometimes, farmers provide hay, for example. “No one’s gone bankrupt yet,” says Huppertz.

Frank Keller, Krone’s manager, has limited sympathy for circuses that are struggling, saying anyone who can’t feed their animals after two weeks and needs handouts shouldn’t keep animals at all.

Keller says councils are demanding everyone pay rent for the land they work on and deposits ahead of time, and blames circuses that aren’t paying electricity and water bills for that. “Now, city councils have 200,000 euros sitting around in their bank accounts.”

He’s still paying for animal food and care, vets and the blacksmith. After all, animals need daily exercise – otherwise they get bored, Keller says.

Of the staff, Clara Puydebois is busy sewing face masks and patching up costumes at the tailor shop. Her son James is spending the winter in Spain with the elephants. Toni Munoz, the chief electrician, is finally cleaning sawdust out of vehicle headlights, a job he has been meaning to do for ever. His son Sven is at the gym, training for his next high-wire act.

Germany’s circus association is worried mainly about the industry’s biggest companies. If circuses can start operating again in September, and distancing rules mean only 100 spectators can enter a tent with seats for 400, that would be all right, as many circuses don’t usually have many more attendees anyway, says Huppertz.

It’s tougher for the larger circuses.

Cologne’s Circus Roncalli is one such big company, but its fixed costs are lower as it doesn’t have any animals. Roncalli is planning to run two shows in June, with people watching artists and clowns from their cars. “We’re looking at 1,000 cars in Hanover and 850 in Mannheim,” says spokesman Markus Strobl.

He couldn’t say if the circus would put on a show for Christmas – it depends on whether it would be profitable in light of the pandemic.

Krone’s directors are struggling with a lot of questions right now, from how to manage toilets to how to handle crowds at intermission. And then there’s the main question: When can business start again?

“We’re almost sick with the uncertainty,” says Keller.