GENERAL ADMISSION $20 (bleacher seating)
VIP $25 (chair seating)
Children 2 and under are FREE!
Zoppé Circus is Back With its Big Top Experience
Online ticket sale will close at the end of day, Thursday, August 10. After that time, tickets will be only available at the ticket booth in front of the circus tent.
The circus is coming to town! Sadly, not many of us will hear these words, now that the Ringling Brothers and other touring circuses have shut down permanently. Fortunately, for circus-lovers living in or visiting Colorado, the Zoppè Family Circus will perform under their Big Top Veneto. (Veneto is what this sixth generation of the Zoppè Circus Family christened their big top tent, in honor of the Italian town from which the family hails.)
A favorite among Carnation Festival-goers, Zoppè Circus is celebrating its 175th year anniversary of the family-run circus. Among the 54 individuals who make up the company of circus performers coming to Wheat Ridge are 10 blood relatives of the Zoppè family.
“We are the classic circus in America today,” said Giovanni Zoppè, who now runs the Zoppè Circus. “We’re a complete circus, but we are what a circus was in the 1800s. That goes along with the costumes, music, and style of show…. Everything we do takes you back to 1800s.”
Zoppè likens Zoppè Circus to Christmas. Just as Christmas comes every year, with different presents under the tree, the Zoppè Circus also comes every year and brings different acts. Zoppè says this will be the freshest show they’ve performed in the past 10 years.
Among the new acts is a bareback-riding performance from Zoppè’s sister Tosca. According to Zoppè, Tosca, who has been an amazing bareback rider since she was born, will create their father’s classic bareback riding act. Another new act, features four-to-five horses abreast, with a human pyramid of six-to-eight people on top of them.
“This is not an act you can see in America today,” says Zoppè.
The circus also will introduce an act this year that features a bicyclist riding around the sides of a large bowl-shaped apparatus. The apparatus is 15 feet at the top and 10 feet at the bottom. As the bicyclist rides, the bowl goes up about 35 feet and continues to move. By the way, this “bowl” has a large hole in the middle of the bottom. Zoppè explains that this riveting act, which is 120 years old, has not been performed in at least 65 years. He felt it was time to introduce the act to modern-day circus-goers.
The Zoppè Circus’s performances will be Friday, Aug. 11, at 4:00 and 7 p.m.; Saturday, Aug., 12, at 1, 4:00 and 7 p.m.; and Sunday, Aug. 13, at 1 and 4 p.m.
Tickets for each performance are $20 for general admission (bleacher seating), $25 for VIP (chair seating) and free for children 2 and under. The shows sell out quickly, so it’s a good idea to purchase your tickets soon. –Elisabeth Monaghan
