Rock in Rio, one of the world’s largest music festivals, is set for Las Vegas in May 2015 and is a partnership among MGM Resorts International, Cirque du Soleil, billionaire Ron Burkle (who owns the Fresh & Easy grocery story chain here) and Roberto Medina, who founded the headliner concerts 30 years ago.MGM plans to transform 33 acres of prime real estate near Sahara Avenue and its property Circus Circus into a permanent City of Rock open-air concert venue to host the first Rock in Rio USA with a daily capacity of 80,000 people to view five stages.
Jerry Nadal, senior vice president, resident shows division, Cirque du Soleil, told Robin Leach of the Las Vegas Sun that Rock in Rio first approached Cirque to get involved and then they jointly pitched to MGM. “It was about a year from start to finish. We’re going to continue exploring ways for MGM and Cirque to use the venue space when Rock in Rio isn’t here.”
Jerry talked with Mr. Leach about Cirque’s new partnership:
I guess you’re charged with the extraordinary logistics of this?
When this comes in, we’re going to be helping from consumer-segment standpoints to marketing standpoints and just working with Rock in Rio on the overall experience.
Do I describe Cirque as the manager of the enterprise?
No, I think we each have our roles to play; certainly with MGM, and we’re investing, as well, with the venue. I think we all bring our piece of expertise to the pie.
Will Cirque have a position within this magic City of Rock?
I don’t know that you’re going to see Cirque performances, per se. Really it’s going to be Rock in Rio from the music-festival standpoint. We’re going to look at working with them on the customer experience. They certainly have the layout of the site. The way the site will work with the five stages and what the experience is.
We may be involved with some of the experiential pieces of it, but certainly we’re just going be looking for now at how we can fill the site 80,000 people a day for the four days of the festival.
In dealing with the minutiae of the marketing, do you use the Cirque ticketing system at MGM for this event?
We’ll probably be on the MGM platform for the ticketing when that goes live in January when we start selling.
Will Cirque have performers there as part of the entertainment?
At this point, no, there will be no Cirque performers on the site. We’re working with Rock in Rio to get them understanding where the entertainment is coming from, what people are looking for, how we’re going to sell tickets going forward, helping them with their sales.
Personally, what do Cirque and you think about Rock in Rio?
I think they’re great. You look at their track record; they’re just about as old as Cirque du Soleil. They came out of the game with the very first festival at almost 1.4 million people, and I think what they do and the size of the scale they do it at, is completely complementary with us from looking at how you continually change what people think.
We’ve been part of the landscape here for 21 years now, and this is revolutionary for us. We’re in the nightclubs now, we’ve changed the shows over the years where our audience tastes are going. We think that certainly audiences are looking for an experience. They want to participate, they want to be involved, they don’t just want a standard show. I think the whole music festival experience puts us in the same big scale.
Might Cirque use this space of the venue at other times of the year when it’s not Rock in Rio?
Well, I think that when Rock in Rio is not on the site, then that definitely leaves some opportunities for other things to go on the site. I’m sure we’ll be in discussion with MGM about what else we might bring there.
Have Cirque people been to Brazil to see Rock in Rio?
Yes, Cirque people have. We’ve had our creative people going to all the festivals that they’ve had over the last couple of years. This is a win win for everybody involved, especially a win win for rock fans.
{ SOURCE: Las Vegas Sun | http://goo.gl/BoIMU2 }
