Lions and tigers and bears oh my!

Excuse the cliche, but the Ringling Brother’s Boom-A-Ring Circus is coming to Assembly Hall Friday at 7 p.m., and it is pretty exciting for the Champaign-Urbana community.

The show can bring the community and campus back to their childhood – a time when it was exciting to see the exotic animals and acrobatic performers and a time when clowns did not terrify a majority of the population. It was a simpler time that many students surely wish they could get back to: before final exams, term papers and homework that didn’t involve coloring – it was a time of innocence and ignorance.

Go to Assembly Hall this weekend at 6 p.m., an hour before show time. There is an all-access pre-show where the audience can meet the performers, get pictures and autographs, learn how to juggle, try on costumes and more. By going early and meeting the performers a connection forms that makes the already intimate one-ring show even more personal. After the show starts, the audience is so close to the ring that they can even hear the purr of the big cats. The crowd feels as if they are just as involved in the show as the performers.

So let yourself experience being a kid again; stand amazed at the wonder that is the “Greatest Show on Earth.” There are not many things that can bring the childlike innocence back into cynical college students’ lives like the circus coming to town.

The Boom-A-Ring Circus will be in Champaign Friday through Sunday with an early and a late show on Saturday. Tickets are $32 for floor seats and $11 for everywhere else.