In some cities, the "Animal Parade" was a spectacle and was done in broad daylight so that everyone could see it. It served as a calling card for the town they were visiting to remind everyone that the show was there and here's a sample of what's in it.

In NYC they eventually decided to do this in the middle of the night, when the Queens Midtown Tunnel was at its least crowded. It also reduced the number of people involved in protests organized by PETA and other groups.

Competition is crucial for entertainment and certainly when Cirque du Soleil first burst onto the scene, it was a revelation, a reinvention of the art form. It really became what the circus needed to be for a new era... with only domestic animal performers, a focus on human acts and the music! I still will spin several of those Cirque albums because those tracks were so incredible.

It's undeniable that Cirque had an influence on all other circuses. Ringling even tried a one ring show experiment under canvas a couple of years back, and that clearly had everything to do with their French Canadian rivals.

But, as is nearly always the case of someone attempting to mimic what someone else has done, the results were less than satisfactory... and Ringling couldn't keep doing things the way they had because audiences were no longer accepting of it.

I'm sure they considered every option and figured this was the time to stop.