The vinyl version of The Two Ring Circus was released as a double 12" album playing at 45rpm, featuring six previously unreleased remixes and three re-recordings. The CD and cassette editions feature an additional seven live bonus tracks billed as "The Touring Circus".
The first six tracks are all new remixes of songs that had already appeared on their second album The Circus. The next three tracks are re-recordings of two songs from The Circus and one song from the band's debut album Wonderland featuring orchestral arrangements by Andrew Poppy. None of these nine tracks have appeared again on any subsequent Erasure releases or reissues.
The seven "Touring Circus" bonus live tracks on the CD and cassette mainly feature songs from Erasure's first two albums. The last track, a live version of "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)" was their first remake of an ABBA song, foreshadowing a concept that would later provide them with a number-one in the UK in 1992 with the Abba-esqueEP.
All seven of the CD and cassette live bonus tracks were recorded in Hamburg and were previously featured on the triple 12" single release for "The Circus". There was a further live song per 12" not featured on this album. All ten of these live tracks (plus an 11th originally featured on the "Victim of Love" CD single) are featured on disc 2 of the EBX 2 box-set.
The US editions of the CD and cassette also include an additional remix in the form of an edited version of a previously released remix.
Commercial performance
UK chart rules at the time made The Two Ring Circus ineligible to chart.[citation needed] It became their second release to briefly slip into the US Billboard 200 chart, peaking at number 186.[citation needed]
