Circus Harmony Juggling Ball 2024
A night filled with wonder and merriment!
Grab your favorite flannels, your fuzzy slippers and your friends and head to City Museum to help make circus dreams come true at the Juggling Ball!
Enjoy an evening of dining, dancing, and dreaming plus live performances from our flying children and the premiere of a brand-new song by St. Louis singer/songwriter Lynn O'Brien. Single and full table tickets are available - but space is limited so reserve your spot soon!
Enjoy our signature Dream of Flying cocktail, food from Tony the Grillmaster, libations from Earthbound Beer, and deliciously dreamy desserts!
All funds raised from the Juggling Ball will support the Flying Children’s Scholarship Fund, giving children with limited financial resources the chance to defy gravity and soar to new heights inside - and outside - the circus ring.
“Ring” In Some Excitement!
Did you ever want to run away and join the circus as a kid? Good news: While you can’t actually join the circus, you can run away and enjoy it! The reimagined Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus is coming to Missouri Nov.10–12, 2023!
By Peg Cameron Gill
Get ready for The Greatest Show on Earth! The reimagined Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey live experience invites children of all ages to the T-Mobile Center in Kansas City to witness a spectacle of superhuman feats and thrills.
Packed with explosive excitement, The Greatest Show On Earth begins and ends with a bang! Lauren Irving, Alex Stickels, and Jan Damm join forces as Aria, Stix, and Nick Nack who serve as the soul, rhythm, and funny bone of the show, guiding you through an interactive and immersive experience.
The music-filled journey is chock full of catchy rhythms, beats, songs, and laughter that will have you clapping, tapping, singing, and laughing along. Aria, Stix, and Nick Nack serve as show guides, who encounter never-before-seen stunts, acrobatic displays, and comedy acts along the way.
A globally diverse cast that includes 75 performers from 18 countries including Argentina, Canada, Cuba, Ethiopia, Italy, Mongolia, Spain, Ukraine, and the United States will inspire you through a variety of unbelievable circus acts, including never-before-seen stunts like the Triangular Highwire, led by The Lopez Family, sixth-generation circus artists hailing from Mexico and Chile.
You’ll be rolling in the aisles at the hilarious comedy as one of your three show guides, Nick Nack — alongside the Equivokee trio from the Ukraine — introduces a modern take on clowning that forgoes the customary clown makeup and focuses instead on delivering fun for children of all ages through a humorous blend of Rola Bola (a balance board made up of a board placed on a cylindrical tube), juggling, acrobatics, dancing, and much more.
You’ll be amazed at how the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey live experience has taken the elements of a traditional old-school circus and merged them with modern elements and technology.
You’ll marvel as BMX riders, a trial bike, and an extreme unicycle perform stunts on a unique trampoline box constructed in the center of a take-off and landing ramp.
This is the perfect opportunity for family fun. Be in the audience when the “Big Top” bows at T-Mobile Center in Kansas City.
There'll be one show on Friday, Nov. 10 from 7–9 PM, two shows on Saturday, Nov. 11 from 3–5 PM, and 7–9 PM, and two shows on Sunday, Nov. 12 from 11 AM–1 PM, and 3–5 PM. You can purchase tickets here.
In more circus-related reading, learn about Ella Kate, born in 1872 in LaGrange, MO in rural Scotland County. She was known as the “Missouri Giantess” and would join Barnum & Bailey Circus on a nationwide tour in 1897.
For hundreds more events, visit Missouri Life’s Event Calendar.
See A Quirky Circus
Most circuses — whether large and famous like Ringling Bros., and Barnum & Bailey, or small and regional — are traveling ones, and set up a big Big Top tent to perform in. But not this circus. It is traveling, but there is no Big Top tent involved!
By Peg Cameron Gill
Yes, this circus is a traveling one, but by traveling, we mean it’s floating down the Mississippi River on a handmade, ramshackle raft! Talk about a unique sight to see!
The aptly named FLOTSAM! Circus troupe is traveling on a handmade raft 650 river miles from Minneapolis to St. Louis, giving more than 30 FREE performances along the way in different riverfront towns in five states.
No, there aren't any elephants — they would sink the raft. But there is plenty of other big top-type entertainment to enjoy when you watch this one-of-a-kind water wonder.
You'll see marvelous musicians, lithe and limber circus artists and aerial acrobats, comedic clowns, and puppeteers performing. There might be magic tricks and sleight of hand, pantomime, and surprising skits. The troupe boasts a wide range of talents between them, so you never know!
FLOTSAMS! River Circus will be performing on Friday, Sept. 1 in Canton at Mississippi Park, just north of the boat ramp. Simply head to the river and look for the most unusual "boat" — that's FLOTSAM! The show is kid-friendly, and the performances start at 6 PM and are generally wrapped up by 7:30 PM.
Be sure to bring blankets or lawn chairs to sit on, and get there early to secure a good spot.
Can’t make Canton? No worries. You can catch FLOTSAM! River Circus and all its floating fun on Sept. 3 in Hannibal, at a location TBA, or Sept. 4 in Louisiana at Riverfront Park. More performances at more locations will be announced. You can check for updates here.
During the tour, the raft is the troupe’s mode of transit, its home, and its stage. In 2019 thousands came to see the group perform as it toured on Oregon's Willamette River from Corvallis to Portland. FLOTSAM! followed that floating feat with tours of the waterways around Seattle in 2021, and the Sacramento River and San Francisco Bay in 2022. This summer it’s back on the water with its biggest tour yet — six weeks on the Mississippi River from the Twin Cities to St. Louis!
Get out and see the FLOTSAM! River Circus before it’s downstream for good. The performances are FREE, but donations keep the circus afloat — literally!
If you'd like to support its work, you can Venmo your donation to 'rivercircus', or click this Paypal link.
To read more about FLOTSAM!’s current “current” of conveyance — the mighty Mississippi — check out this article.