I was informed by Suba that the Royal London Circus (currently owned by Malaysian) which set camp in Puchong Utama, was having its last show on Wednesday the 12th due to the fasting month. After Puchong, it is to continue at Bandar Botanic Klang. So, I rushed over and bought tickets for the B category – RM45 each. The nice lady gave me a RM5 discount for no apparent reason 🙂 Lowest price was RM25 while VIP seats costs RM75.

We arrived early for the 8.30pm show worried that it will be crowded. Entered the tent at about 7.40pm and tried to find a good location since it was free seating within each category. Managed to book a few seats for Suba and her family as well.

From what I saw, the seats were not arranged properly, thus the people in front are bound to block the views of those at the back. Anyway, I hope we chose a good location, which was the very first row of the B category. While waiting for the show to begin, the audience were continuously bugged by the foreign employees to buy cotton candy, balloons, circus momentos, popcorn etc. No outside food was allowed, so the audience are forced to buy from the booths or employees if they wanted food.

The show began at 8.30pm sharp with an introductory sequence and song. This was followed by a balancing act, jumping acts, clown act, balancing act using cloth (spider and butterfly story), trapeze, animal act etc before a short break at 9.50pm. The clown act was intermittent throughout the show and was enjoyable indeed. Pity that only one spectator was chosen to participate by the clown in the entire show. The animal act saw a monkey and two dogs riding a pony, while the elephant act saw Mighty the Elephant batting like an expert. In between, while the props are arranged, the ringmaster and his partner sang a few songs, which was not clear enough due to the sound system.

As the break ended, I found my view being obstructed by some of the audience who sneaked into the VIP area. A big chinese guy and his family took up about 6 seats and practically blocked abt 60% of stage! After that, I couldn’t see much and could only take picture of those acts that involved mid air area. I missed some of the magic acts, which were quite good. Saw hoop act, more balancing act, trapeze act, and finally the motorbike in a globe act. That was quite good since 4 motorcyclists were scrambling at breathtaking speed in the enclosure. The crowd really appreciated that. The whole program last about 2.5 hours and ended at 11pm.

Overall, for the price we paid, the organisers could have made better seating arrangements, probably by making the seats more steep or angled. The show content itself was OK, especially the clown acts, the loop act, and the motorcycle act, but there were delays while the props were being arranged or removed. The sound system was bad and whatever the ringmaster spoke registered as loud booming voice.

Photos below were taken at distance of 30 metres, 4.5 aperture, and shutter speed between 1/6 and 1/250. You can notice other people’s heads blocking in most of the photos due to the location. Larger images at Picasa.

The fireworks competition came to an end on Sunday 2nd Sept. We decided to go much earlier in anticipation of the crowd and presence of PM at the closing ceremony. We left home at 6pm and went to the Floria Flower and Garden Expo which was drawing to an end as well on Sunday. We spent about one hour there and left for PICC at 8pm. Since we only saw Japan’s performance, we did not want to miss the finale.

At first, we thought of buying tickets and going into PICC itself. But when I asked one of the organisers, he said entrance to the grounds of PICC was free, but we must pay if we want to go into the building. So, we parked across the PICC guard entrance and took the free shuttle service to the top. Managed to find a place along the outer balcony facing the Gemilang Bridge. This time, we were further away, about 500 metres from the launch site, but we were on higher ground as compared to our visit on 30th night.

Saw PM arriving around 9.20pm. At sharp 10pm, the show started. For the finale, each of the three team – Australia, Malaysia and Japan did a 5 – minute show, followed by the organiser. I couldn’t take many shots due to the smoke. The fireworks seemed to come up randomly and spaced apart, so it was harder to focus. The display ended at 10.30pm. It was quite entertaining, but we felt that Japan’s show on the 30th was better. Maybe due to different teams performing, the display looked disconnected.

Anxious to avoid the massive jam, we rushed to our car, but could not enter the LDP until about 11.15pm. The police blocked roads, and there were too many cars. Anyway, I entered LDP and exited towards Cyberjaya. Took the route past Fire Dept, MDEC etc. and took the Kg Meranti road to home. Reached home at 11.40pm, exactly 1 hour and 10 minutes after the show ended. A trip that normally takes me only 25 minutes at most! I dread to think of those who had to endure the crawl along LDP all the way till Sunway, which is more than 20km away. Heard that exit to ELITE and LDP-Dengkil stretch was similarly jammed.

The photos below were taken using tripod and aperture between 3.8 and 4.5 at ISO 200 and shutter speed between 1/4 and 2 seconds. Bigger images at Picasa.