According to a report in the New York Daily News, clown organisations have found their numbers dropping rapidly as older clowns are passing away, and younger people are slow to take up the mantle.
President of Clowns of America International, Glen Kohlberger, told the US-based paper that things aren’t looking good for the red-nosed entertainers as the next generation are reticent to take up clowning. “They go on to high school and college and clowning isn’t cool anymore,” he said. “Clowning is put on the back burner until their late 40s and early 50s.”
However, things are still looking rosy for clowning in the UK. Speaking to The Independent, the secretary of Clowns International, Tony Eldridge, said that things were carrying on as normal. “There’s no crisis here,” he said. “There’s never been that many clowns in Great Britain; we’ve always had around 250 to 300 members.”
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