The mirror., 1914-03-26
THE CIRCUS FROM
START TO FINISH
Slivers Begins a Series of Arti-
cles in Which he Tells What
Constitutes Life in Circus and
Carnival. Advertising End.

Few people know very much about
the business side of the circus or car
nival company. but in this series of
short articles 1 will try and give
you a view of the circus and car
nival as the profession knows it.
will take up the advance cars and
twenty-four hour man first. All
will recognize the importance of
the advance crews at once for it is
through the advance work that the
people of the cities and towns are
told Of the coming wonders.
Most of the large circuses have
four advance cars, two route finders
and two opposition crews. The
first car leaves winter quarters
about eight weeks before the spring
date of the show. The crew is
made up Of from ten to twenty men
in charge of crew manager. The
crew consist of billposters, lithO-
graphers. banner men, herald men,
and cook and car porter. Each
man has his own work: billposters
do nothing but use brush. the Ii
thographers do nothing but use a
pair of STICKS" the herald men su-
pervise the boys who pass heralds
from house to house thereby earn
ing a pass or comp" to the show.
ho
pert in his line for it is no small
task to route any show be it large
or small. Mr.. Crew Manager must
know the whole country as most
people know their home town; he
must know the location of all rail
roads with their connections and
branches; he must know what shows
played given territory the last
season and what kind of business
, it done; he must know crop condi
tions, be, in fact, kind of a wizard,
for on him depends the success or
failure of the show. Next to the
crew manager the billposters are
the most important, then the
photographers and banner men. The
herald men are usually the cubs"
of the crew.
The Opposition Car
4 About two weeks before the OPEN
ing date the second, or opposition
car starts out, and the crew is about
the same as the fist. only that the
men are the fastest to be had. The
opposition car IS made up to fight
opposition from other shows. To
illustrate, the Barnum e Bailey
show bills a town to be played on a
given date, the Sells, Floto show
routes it's advance car into the same
town or city which they bill to play
three days later and are very liable
to cover the first shows paper, or
in some way hurt the first billing.
The No. car is away ahead of the
show and it is impossible to call it
back so the No. 2 or opposition car
makes the town to protect the inter-
ests of the show it represents. In
some cases two opposition crew s
will be billing in the same town at
the same time, and in some cases
working on the same building or
bill board.
The advance work for a carnival
company is somewhat different. A
special agent goes ahead of the ad-
vance car making contracts with
lodges and business mems assOcia-
tions under whose auspices the COM
pany is to show. After the special
agent comes the advance car, but
with smaller crew, and there is
no opposition crew.
Twenty-fosr Hour Man
The twenty-four hour man is al
ways just twenty four hours ahead
of the circus. He Is an important
factor with the show. as he makes
all arrangements aud contracts with
local merchants for feed for the
stock and provisions for the cook
house looks after final details re-
garding the lot (the show grounds
is always the lot to the profession) i,
and transportation to the next town
with the railroad companies and a
thousand and one other little things
that have to be attended to.
Contracts with local merchants
always call for payment In silver
coin at the ticket wagon. The rea-
son for this is the large amount of
silver taken in each day, which is
very hard to handle. When the