The whole history of Circus World is kind of interesting. Originally, it was to be called "The Living World of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey" and was to feature a "circus town" where parade wagons were built, a circus train, a wild west show, animal exhibits and a 10-story "elephant" with a restaurant on it's back that was to be the park's "castle". At various times, plans were to move the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Clown College there as well as a school for training circus artists.
Irvin Feld had an imagination that was almost as big as his ego but the grandiose plans that he unveiled to the public never came to be. I have a print of the original concept drawing in my work room and it really does look like a bit of a mad scheme. Originally, the park was run by circus people with no experience running a theme park. After Mattel (who owned Ringling Bros. at the time) took a bath the first year they demanded that people from Disney and other theme parks be brought in to run it but given it's location, it's rather limited appeal, and the Feld's short attention span (and, after Mattel was out of the picture, the lack of operating capital) the place really didn't stand a chance. Although some of the circus acts that performed there over time were some of the best in the world.
But what amazed me was when HBJ bought the property and re-themed it as something that I thought had even more limited appeal. For a time, it was the spring training home of the Kansas City Royals and they built a rather nice stadium that I enjoyed going to on several occasions. Today, it's all just a very non-descript strip mall.
The Circus World IMAX film was one of the first large-format films to be produced and has been lost for several years. There was supposed to be a viewing of a copy at a Clown College reunion a few years ago but the film that arrived in the cannister turned out to be a badly worn documentary on the Monte Carlo circus festival...which was very disappointing.
Many of the people who worked at Circus World have fond memories of the place and they held a reunion at one of the hotels nearby a few months ago. You might still be able to search for stories about the gathering in Google News.