Circus Apologizes for Photoshopping Scenic Lake Over Rough Neighborhood

A circus has apologized after Photoshopping an image taken by a drone so that a serene lake appears in the background instead of a notorious neighborhood.

The East End of Glasgow in Scotland has a tough reputation and when the Big Kid Circus shared aerial photos of its location in a mall car park, locals immediately noticed something amiss.

“Wow. Never seen Easterhouse look so good before,” jokes David Pennie on Facebook. The Easterhouse area has a reputation for gang violence and poverty, the suburb would have been visible in the background but a loch (Scottish Gaelic for lake) was edited in instead.

“This circus at Glasgow Fort has really made Easterhouse and Coatbridge look glorious in the sunshine,” writes Catriona Stewart on X (formerly Twitter). “My mother’s house now seems to be under water but never mind.”

Big Kid Circus not only edited in a loch but also some splendid-looking mountains as well as a fake blue sky, the original photo had a more typically Scottish grey sky.

Some people compared it to the now infamous Willy Wonka Chocolate Experience that also took place in Glasgow.

However, the Willy Wonka organizer’s list of sins was far more egregious than Big Kid Circus after they used fantastical AI images to promote the event that spectacularly didn’t match expectations with the fiasco making headlines around the world.

Apology

Big Kid Circus took to its Facebook page to apologize for the edited photos of Glasgow’s East End.

“We would like to apologize to anyone who may have taken offense to our drone photo of the circus tent at Glasgow Fort,” it writes.

“Our intentions of the image were to outline the circus tent at the shopping center. We are grateful to the local community for welcoming the Big Kid Circus in your area and we hope we can provide local families with some fun circus entertainment.”