Circus folk typically work 11 straight months without a day off, with the show shutting down only for a few weeks around Christmas to ready for the new year's edition. Once on the circus lot, and guided to your parking space by the advance team, you get a few hours sleep before set-up begins just before dawn. Set-up is the most grueling aspect of circus life, in which the equivalent of a small town must be erected before the public starts arriving for the first performance. This can mean the span of a very few hours. The work is assigned to work crews who handle the tent known as the canvas crew, the seating, the electrical generators and wiring, the animals, and the various midway concession stands.
Performers are typically responsible for setting up their own rigging at the appropriate time.
Typically there will be one or two performances on set-up day, two performances on weekdays, and three performances on weekends. Immediately following the last show at a particular location, everything is dismantled and packed into trucks, after which everyone hits the road to the next town. Circuses are like large families. They tend to rely heavily on one another large due to the amount of work and interdependence involved, and the inability to form any contacts outside of the show since it is always moving. Children are home schooled by their parents or members of the show typically following correspondence school curricula.