The Freedom Family Circus after a performance.

Hiya Arcata!

We are finishing our last week of performances at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the world’s largest and oldest performance arts festival.

I am launching two brand new circus companies at the festival, Freedom Family Circus and Xtreme Sideshow. Gathered together are the best circus performers I could find across America. From Chile, but now residing in Arcata we have Periko Circo Express.

A former Marching Lumberjack and HSU student now operating out of the Bay Area is Margarita Licon. For the first two weeks we had Cindy Marvell from the Boulder Circus Center, who has now been replaced by Jacob D’Eustachio, who studied at the Quebec Circus School and performs with AgaBoom.

Hermee the clown is a master balloon twister from Phoenix, Ariz. Also from Phoenix is Harvey Gross, the grossest man in Sideshow. You may have seen Luther Bangert from Portland, Ore. performing recently in Arcata with the Wanderlust Circus. With the combined forces of these eight performers we have taken the Fringe Festival by storm!

We have two shows a day, a matinee for kiddies and an evening show for adults. The shows have been received very well, especially the kids’ show. Two newspaper reviews, three magazine reviews and four online reviews, and our show has been given a four-star rating.

Lincoln and Wallace do battle.

Our show changes daily with rotating emcees, a Circus Olympics theme on Fridays and a Sh*tfaced Sideshow on Saturday eve. We have had returning audience members and celebrity audience members. including the world’s most tattooed woman and Thomas Blackthorn who had eight Guinness records for sword swallowing variations such as swallowing a jackhammer.

During time off between shows, we all hit up the Royal Mile for street performing and publicizing.

Brings a tear to me eye to be closing the FreeLove Circus Show, a Humboldt County performance group I started in 2007 in the wake of my mothers death.

Many of the performers in the FreeLove Circus have moved on to bigger and better shows after their engagements performing around the Pacific Northwest.

There seem to be so many up-and-coming circus and comedy related shows in the Humboldt area that there is no time for audiences to offer support to the FreeLove Circus.

I give big thanks to all the cast members and audiences who have enjoyed the FreeLove Circus, but alas the shelf life of this company has come to an end.

Juggling on the bridge.

Look out for many new projects coming soon. Arcata’s very own Circus Emporium houses a vintage collection of oddities and a traveling roadshow. We have launched five national tours since January and gathered a most prestigious group of Circus Sideshow performers, whom will be visiting Arcata on the regular.

As I move my business interests beyond the Emerald Triangle to strange and interesting areas across the nation and internationally, I hope to return to smiling faces at my headquarters in quiet Arcata.

I will never forget the support I have received since I joined a small juggling club at the Arcata Farmers’ Market in 1999. Thank you Arcata for your inspiration, creativity and love

Yours truly,

Shea Freedomhowler

Intercontinental Super Clown and Human Marvel