“An Invitation to Amazement” is Cirque du Soleil’s tagline for one of
its newest offerings – the Cirque du Soleil Gift Card. Available in
USD denominations of 25-50-75-100-150 or 200 dollars, they can be
delivered free to the purchaser or intended receiver by courier or
email. While you can’t get refunds the card never expires. Sounds
like a good way to introduce a friend to the wonders of Cirque du
Soleil, no?
Being recipients of one of the cards courtesy of Cirque du Soleil we
decided to do what they likely hoped we would do – write about it!
And after looking at the system and how it works (or in some cases,
doesn’t) there is a lot to write about.
The yellow credit card-sized card comes in its own gift flap with
space on the inside for names and a message (which can be customized
up to 200 characters when the card is sent via email). On the back of
the card are a bar code, a rather long serial number, and a 4-digit
security code underneath a scratch-off security layer. It’s also
here, amongst the legalese, that we find the issuer of the card as EBG
Gift Card Services, LLC and not Cirque du Soleil. “EBG” is
Entertainment Benefits Group (.com), one of the largest providers of
corporate benefit programs and direct travel programs in the US. They
maintain such websites as showtickets.com and ticketsandtours.com
(which sell half-price show tickets in Las Vegas), ticketsatwork.com
(selling theme park and theater tickets to employees whose companies
offer the benefit) and bestoforlando.com (a site for Orlando area
attraction tickets). In fact, the charge you make will appear on your
credit card statement as “Travel Providers of America” an EBG
subsidiary. So while you are buying a card to be used for Cirque
tickets Cirque is only marketing the card, you are doing business with
EBG.
To purchase the card you go to < www.cirquedusoleilgift.com > or call
1-877-583-8368. However, the only way to redeem the card is at the
website; it can’t be taken to a box office. And it can only be used
for shows in the United States (which offers at least the nine US
resident shows as well as Grand Chapiteau and arena shows). It can’t
be used for merchandise or concessions. The purchasing interface is
straightforward; it’s when trying to redeem the card, however, that
its shortcomings (at least in its current form) become apparent.
To begin, you have to use this website for redemption, limiting you to
their ticketing interface. Which is nowhere near the powerful program
Cirque uses to sell their Grand Chapiteau tickets (which we think is
the best interface of its kind). The website is moderately good at
allowing you to select from all US shows or by city, to choose from
the complete schedule of shows for several months into the future, and
showing all the available ticket types. (It also charges
“convenience” and “transaction” fees, but the Gift Card can be used to
pay those off too.) But it is at this point the application falls
short.
After picking the show, performance, and ticket type, the interface
presents a page showing seats that have automatically been selected
for you, much in the same way as Ticketmaster. Which is fine for
those used to Ticketmaster and the way it doles out tickets. But it’s
a disappointment to those who are used to the lovely Cirque ticket
application that not only allows you to pick a seating section, but
gives several choices within that section as well as showing a view of
the stage from that section.
As an example, we used the site to get seats for a performance of OVO
in Portland, OR. While the standard Cirque ticket interface provided
several options of Category 1 seats just behind the soundboard in
Section 200, the Gift Card interface chose seats on the extreme left
of the stage, in Row A of Section 103, with no other choices in that
price range offered. Fine for being close to the action but not for
sitting further back for a wider view.
And it won’t provide a seating selection for the resident shows at
all! Instead, you pay for the tickets without knowing where you will
be seated. We have been informed that ticket orders for resident
shows are handled manually by the Cirque ticketing team as soon as
possible after the order is placed using the same ticket inventory the
resident show interface uses, and that the purchaser is then informed
of the location of their seats. (The recipient picks up the tickets
at a will call ticket booth.) This gave us pause; we don’t feel
comfortable handing over $200-300 or more for a pair of tickets
without knowing where we will be seated.
One other comment about the interface – the payment process doesn’t
automatically assume you will be redeeming a Gift Card; you have to
search for and expand that section of the payment page. Since this
page is set up exclusively for the redemption of the cards we would
think that section would already be expanded when the page first
loads.
In talking with some friendly sources, we learned that the intricacies
of working with the various partners and applications Cirque uses to
sell its tickets means the interface used (created by the
administrator of the system, EBG) was the best option available in the
time they had to put the program together. The goal is to eventually
be able to redeem the Gift Card through the Cirque Grand Chapiteau
interface, and perhaps through the MGM Las Vegas ticket interface
though that may be harder to do.
The way the card program is currently structured we find it a great
way to introduce someone new to a Cirque du Soleil show. A new person
likely won’t care too much about where they sit so the ticket
interface provided should do just fine. This card works well for that
purpose. However, if your recipient is an experienced Cirque fan we
don’t recommend the Gift Card because it doesn’t allow you to control
where you sit, and for resident shows it doesn’t show you where you
will sit until some time after you have purchased the tickets.
We also feel it should work for merchandise and concessions,
especially at Grand Chapiteau shows and the online Boutique, since
it’s sold in denominations as small as $25.00. We’d also like to see
it be redeemable at the box office, at least for Grand Chapiteau and
resident shows. Until it works out those issues we can only give it a
one-half thumbs up.
