COWBOY SHOW FAILS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 77, Issue 208, 3 September 1934, Page 10

COWBOY SHOW FAILS

RODEO AT WHITE CITY LOSSES ABOUT £60,000 TEX AUSTIN'S BITTER WORDS. Une of tire greatest financial failures in the history of the show business in Britain closed at the White City, London, on July 7. The rodeo cost its thousands of pounds. At many performances the cowboy competitors were often earning more in prizes than the total gate money paid by spectators. Although the show was the finest exhibition of hard riding London has seen for years, it did not seem to “catch on” with the public, bo 13U cowboys and cowgirls, members of Tex Austin’s troupe, sailed from Britain bitterly disappointed. Air. G- L. Schein, the ‘ ‘ brain trust’ ’ lawyer and personal counsel of Tex Austin, the famous cowboy promoter, estimated to lhe Sunday Chronicle that the total rodeo losses would be £60,000. In 1924 the rodeo paid the British Government £22,954 entertainment tax and played to millions of people. “AYe thought it would be equally successful,” Mr. Schein said. ‘‘But some weeks we were only averaging about £5OO a show. The prize-money varies; sometimes it was as much as £630 daily. ’ ’ The following figures, roughly estimated by Mr. ochein, show lhe amazing losses faced by the American sponsors and their associates. The .sum oil £90,000 has been invested on the whole venture. Some period before the wind-1 up only £11,500 had been retrieved in gate money.’ The latest figures were naturally higher, but they had not then been estimated. Against this meagre return are heavy expenses. A .sum of £5OOO was I guaranteed to the White City for the whole period and a percentage on the gross, a total of £lO,OOO was deposited in the National City Bank, New Yoik, against prize-money, while £3OOO was spent in the construction of pens and other necessary arrangements for the 400 head of stock. No less than £12,500 was paid to the Cunard and other British lines for the transport of cowboys and cowgirls from Canada and the States to England, while £4OO was paid in weekly fodder bills- Then there were staff, hotel and other expenses. Tex Austin wa.s angry and dismayed over what he considered "raw ■ deal” the rodeo has had. “We were • beaten by organised opposition,” he , said. “The power our opponents • wielded in high places was frighten- . ing. W'e were helpless before them. From start to finish I encountered official opposition of a nature that I can onlv be called ‘inspired. , Tex Austin’s business manager. Mr. J. S. Bach, said that most of the losses would be stood by the Arne Dean interests.