Interview With Kenneth Feld

Image: Chris O'Meara/AP

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As chief executive of the family-owned, Virginia-based Feld Entertainment—which claims to be the world's largest live-production company—Kenneth Feld controls some of the planet's more enduring brands.

First and foremost is the Greatest Show on Earth—namely, the legendary Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, which has been in the Feld family for nearly a third of its 138 years. Then there are traveling extravaganzas licensed by the Walt Disney Co.: Disney On Ice, Disney Live, and High School Musical. And finally there's Doodlebops Live, which the 59-year-old Feld describes as "rock and roll for four-year-olds." The whole enterprise (founded by Feld's father Irvin, one of the original impresarios of rock and roll for grownups) employs thousands of performers and support staff (to say nothing of dozens of elephants and other large once-wild animals), owns and operates two mile-long private trains, and brings in 25 million customers—"children of all ages"—in 52 countries. Annual revenue is reportedly around $750 million and climbing.

But not everything under the big top is family-friendly fun. There have been disastrous incidents—notably the near-fatal Bengal tiger attack on Roy Horn in October 2003 that abruptly ended the profitable Feld-produced Siegfried & Roy act in Las Vegas. And there are a couple of ongoing lawsuits that have attracted a lot more negative publicity (including a withering 60 Minutes exposé) than many corporations could easily withstand.

On Siegfried & Roy:

"We took them from really being a specialty act into becoming headliners and worldwide entertainers."

On PETA:

"Let's get real, there is no 'wild' the way it may have existed 100 years ago."

In October, a federal court in Washington is expected to try an elephant-abuse lawsuit against Ringling Bros. filed by various animal-welfare organizations, alleging routine beatings and improper chaining among other cruelties. And two weeks ago, a superior court judge refused to throw out a nine-year-old lawsuit by freelance journalist Jan Pottker, who claims that after she published a magazine article about Feld Entertainment that deeply offended him, he ordered his security team, led by former C.I.A. operative Clair George (who was convicted and then pardoned over his role in the Iran-Contra affair) to spy on her and ruin her chances at professional success. Last week Feld discussed these and other issues in an exclusive interview with Portfolio.com

Lloyd Grove: You basically own and operate a rather treasured piece of Americana, do you not?
 
Kenneth Feld: It is, you know, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey. It's 138 years old, so we're actually a year older than baseball. And it's been in our family now over 40 years. I think it's been in the Feld family longer than either Barnum, Bailey, or the Ringling Bros., for that matter.
 
L.G.: Wow.
 
K.F.: So it's sort of like being the trustee or the steward of a great American institution, and to make sure that we can do everything while it's sort of our turn to be that trustee, to make it grow and thrive, and to entertain as many families as possible.
 
L.G.: At one point you sold the circus to Mattel, right?
 
K.F.: Yeah, that took place in 1971. All during that time, my father and I still operated it. And then in 1982 we bought it back from Mattel.
 
L.G.: Now it's been widely reported that it was for $50 million, but I also understand it was in stock—which plunged. Then you bought it back for $23 million. So you didn't make as much money on that whole transaction as commonly assumed, right?
 
K.F.: Well that's true. We had a lot of Mattel stock at the time, which at that point was not worth so much.
 
L.G.: Didn't it go down to 90 cents a share at one point?
 
K.F.: I think it actually went down to, like, 50 cents a share. It was devastating because we basically had everything wrapped up in the circus, and it wound up being in Mattel stock. So the greatest thing really for us was when we were able to reacquire it in 1982. It's a kind of business that probably does not belong being a public company, in the sense that it's been around for so long, and we had such a long-term outlook on strategic things—how we operate, what we do, the investment that we not only put into Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey, but the Center for Elephant Conservation that we have, which is a real passion of mine. So I think if we were a public company, the demands for higher margins and those things would maybe preclude some of that. It's a great business for the family, and I'm fortunate that my daughters are now in it.

L.G.: Do you have two involved in it?
 
K.F.: Yes, we have three daughters, and two are involved. Nicole, who is the oldest, is the producer of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey, so she's really responsible for the whole conception, you know: the creative team to put on the new shows, and she oversees the acquisition of the talent. She's also involved in the production of some of our Disney On Ice shows and also High School Musical. Alana is executive vice president and producer of all of our stage productions and the Doodlebops. It's a different kind of touring model that goes worldwide, but these are stage shows for families, and young families, so in many cases that's maybe the first theatrical production that kids will ever see—these Disney Live shows and the Doodlebops.

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