What is CircusBox
Circus Box was formed by Greg Wells in 1992 to enable children of all ages and abilities the chance to be a part of the circus, even if for only a couple of hours.
It all started in 1990 when Greg started helping out Tony Ashton with the Lewes Youth Circus( Circus Pipsqueak ), East Sussex, firstly with unicycling as he had learned the art in 1989.
The youth circus was working towards their first christmas show and Greg and Tony ended up on stage as ringmaster (tony) and sidekick The Clown with no name (Greg).
The show with 25 kids between the ages of 4 and 17 was a great success and the youth circus thrived, moved practice venue and toured local public events such as fetes and festivals during the summer of 1991.
It was during this time Greg and Tony had started to perform together as the Ravioli Brothers and were being asked to perform at public and private events as well as adult and childrens parties.
The inevitable then happened, people started to ask about circus workshops and if we could provide them for their youth groups as the success of the Lewes Youth Circus was spreading and people wanted to experience what the youth circus kid's were.
Tony with 3 kids, a proper job and a mortgage couldn't spare any more time other than for performing, so Greg took the suitcase by its handle.
With the help of a trolly and train or a bus he would set of with a selection of circus equipment and get paid to visit local youth clubs and cub scout groups, letting all hell break loose when the demo was over and the equipment was free for all.
It was in 1992 when Greg made his big leap, he wrote a business plan and sent it to the Princess Youth Business Trust (PYBT) who in turn gave him a grant to help set up Doctor Colin's Circus ( Circus Box).
He learnt to drive, got a mini estate car and with the help of the PYBT publicity machine he got youth clubs, kids parties, fetes, festivals and all sorts of other jobs coming out of his ears, he then got a bigger vehicle, painted it very colourfull and started to get jobs all over the south of England.
In 1993 Greg took over the running of The youth circus in Lewes which continued to flourish but only ran during the winter months as Greg was on the road from May to September.
Circus Box continued to grow and during the summer months up to 15 people would be going to festivals and fetes all over the south in the name of Circus Box either in groups or on their own.
It was hard work for Greg to sort out all the logistics for everyone and also concentrate on his own perfomances and workshops so in 1997 he went back to his roots and started to work for and by himself again.
Greg still has dedicated assistants and without their help and dedication to the circus arts would not be able to provide such a range of quality circus entertainment.
Each year Greg and his helpers work with as many as 12,000 kids providing circus activities areas, circus workshops, performances and residential workshops culminating in performances by the children wheather it be over two days or two weeks.