Everyone has childhood memories of attending a circus with their parents – the incredible performances, the delicious smell of popcorn and the colourful big top tent.
But for Kourtney Pavlov that was her life every single day after being born into the circus and a family legacy.
It wasn’t until her 20s that she took the leap and left circus life to merge it with what she calls “the normal world” – creating her own business, K Hoops Entertainment.
It all started with her grandmother who joined a roadshow. She would travel to different theatres to act and perform musical and comedy shows with her husband. She later decided to sell her house and buy a circus tent.
“My grandmother had seven kids and one of them was my mum, who was born into circus life in Ireland,” Kourney says.
“My dad ran away with the circus when he was 14. He’s from Bulgaria and was a gymnast as a child. He ended up in the UK and later came to Ireland – that’s how he met my mum.”
Her mother has worked as a contortionist, done trapeze and was a ring mistress in Malaysia for six months, while her father has a unique act.
“He was a rola rola act. He would stand on a board that’s balancing on a cylinder. That was on a swinging spaceship prop in the air. There is no safety or harnesses. He is the only person in the world to do what he did,”
The first act
Kourtney’s foray into performing came when she was seven, but her stage act wasn’t her only involvement in the circus business.
“Because it’s a family business, you chip in everywhere you can. You’re doing ticket sales, marketing and working in the shop selling candy floss. It was the norm for me,” she says.
“Even now that I’m my own boss, I feel uncomfortable when I have too much time off. I’m so used to working all the time.”
She started out with hula hoops, but her dream always lay with aerial work as the thrill acts intrigued her.
“I loved seeing the audience’s faces when the thrill act was on,” she shares. “My mum had me in gymnastics since I was four years old, so I was always practising strength work and flexibility.
“I actually didn’t do aerial work until I was 16 because she was scared of me going up. There are no safety nets and no harness. It’s completely your own strength and your own control. It’s life threatening. My main act before I left the circus was the aerial chandelier.”
Work ethic
For 11 months out of the year, she would travel around Ireland, moving from town to town, putting on two eyecatching shows every day with her family.
“It was crazy. Since I’ve left, I’ve only realised how crazy it was. When I was in it I didn’t know any different,” she says.
“Our circus ran for about 11 months of the year. When I was 16, I started going to do Christmas shows around Europe. I went to Spain and Germany. I worked 12 months of the year from 16 to 23.”
Changing careers
While there was a great salary to be made working abroad, when Kourtney hit her 20s, she began thinking about the type of future she wanted.
“In the circus, there really is only one path,” she explains. “You can only perform for so long and then you have to go into selling candy floss.
“It sounds so cliché but that is the truth of it. I always had bigger dreams and bigger goals. I didn’t know what that meant, but I started to realise that the circus life wasn’t for me.
“It was really hard to decide that because it is so rare for someone who was born in the circus world to leave it. If they’ve left, they always end up back there.”
Like many other performers, she had a difficult time during the pandemic and relied on the Pandemic Unemployment Payment. It was around this time that she made one of the biggest decisions of her life.
“I moved to Dublin and rented a room. I was trying to figure things out. I was on the Pandemic Unemployment Payment for Covid and then I was getting the Jobseeker’s Allowance,” she says.
“I had to decide between getting a normal job, which is the scariest thing because I’ve never had a normal job, or start a business – so I started my own business.”
Starting from the bottom
Entertaining people is where Kourtney finds joy. It’s also where she got the idea for her business.
“I thought about what I could do, what I’m passionate about and where there is a gap in the market – and I thought about the circus,” she shares.
“There’s the traditional circus, but I felt there was a gap for performers at events and festivals.
“All these things were going on, but I didn’t see the circus at them. I wanted to bring the traditional circus into the normal world.”
She created K Hoops Entertainment, which provides entertainment for events like kids parties, festivals and weddings.
Kourtney explains that they do everything from circus shows, fire performances and aerial acts to face painting and doing unicorn hair.
Before taking off with her business idea, she completed a digital marketing course at DCU in order to learn how she could successfully advertise her services.
However, her business didn’t take off immediately. It took years of building up her customer base and networking to get Kourtney where she is today.
“In my first year, I had three bookings. The next year, I had 30 bookings and the year after that saw me get 100 bookings,” she reveals.
“Five years on, it has grown into this beautiful business and I’m getting opportunities that I never thought would be possible.”
Lessons from the circus
The dedication it took to stay with her business over the years was a core lesson she learned from growing up in the circus.
“I learned from a very young age that it’s important to build discipline to do the things people in the circus do. It takes a long time,” she explains.
“When you’re struggling and you can’t learn a trick, you have to keep pushing until it happens. I implemented that into my own strategy for building my business.”
It wasn’t an easy transition for Kourtney, who had to build her life from scratch when she left the circus.
“It’s very rare for someone to leave the circus so it’s very hard to find someone that can understand my story and how I’ve lived,” she says.
“I’m not a shy person. I’m very outgoing and I have made friends. The hardest part of it was starting from fresh and building my life.”
She now takes these lessons into classrooms and shares how one knock-back shouldn’t stop you from achieving your goals.
“I’ve started doing talks in schools. I speak to transition year students to tell them my story,” she shares.
“It’s a hard age and I think a lot of them can feel lost. There’s a lot of pressure for your future. I try to show them that even when you feel like you can have nothing and you’ve hit rock bottom, there’s always a way to change your life and make it go in the direction you want regardless of your circumstances.”
W: khoopsentertainment.com, IG: @khoopsentertainment @kreateentertainmentagency
