The Big Apple Circus is closing at Lincoln Center, it announced Tuesday.
After more than 35 years of performances, the cash-strapped circus will not be able to return for the 2016-17 season, it announced on Facebook.
The show was a New York City holiday tradition, delighting audiences with eclectic themes and acrobatic and animal tricks.
The non-profit organization started a fundraiser last month in a last-ditch effort to raise an emergency $2 million, but it fell far short of its goal, raising just $900,000, according to The New York Times.
Big Apple Circus says it will use the money it did raise to continue providing its community programs, including Clown Care, which comprises visits to kids in hospitals across the country. The funds will also help support Circus to Go, which provides clowns, acrobats, aerialists and other performers for private parties and events.
Big Apple Circus was started in the 1970s with a "Robin Hood spirit" that some families would pay full price for the entertainment while those who couldn't afford to wouldn't pay anything, the Times reports.
Staffing at the circus' Brooklyn office has already been reduced to eight from 30, and performers will have to find other places to work, according to the Times.
