As Varekai winds its way across North America to finish up its arena tour here, rumors have been circulating about its future in Europe and beyond. To put it simply: the rumor states Varekai will close during the summer of 2016 after a very short European Tour (and arena tour overall). The reason for its premature end wasn’t part of the mill, but even Wikipedia has picked up on this gossip, so it has to be true, doesn’t it? I mean reports of Kooza returning to the United States for a brief period circulated about recently too and they’ve just come true. (I hope you’re ready Columbus, Ohio – See the dates in our Itineraire Section!) And there are rumblings that IRIS may be close to resurrection for Cirque’s new permanent residence in New York City (New York Post columnist Michael Riedel quoted unspecified sources suggesting Cirque du Soleil is looking to take over the Lyric Theatre on Broadway in the spring). So who knows! Nothing is official at this point, but it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that Varekai would close early. Could it be because AVATAR is slated to begin touring in arenas by year’s end? Is it because OVO is due for conversion into an arena format soon? Would there be too many arena shows by that point? (Quidam is expected to close in 2016 as well.) Or could it be that Cirque is having a hard time lately finding profitable and available locations for its arena shows?
Considering a February 22nd report that Cirque’s reported a 33.6% drop in revenues from its European Tours, it seems likely the company is having troubles finding profitable locations. So no wonder arena tours are getting shorter and shorter! To prove that I pulled together some arena tour data, as is my wont, to compare and contrast each of the arena show tours to date. To give me a baseline I re-traced Saltimbanco’s arena tour with focus on the number of months the show spent in a particular market and which markets it visited throughout its run, and then compared Saltimbanco’s tours to each subsequent arena conversion (Alegria, Quidam, Dralion, MJ Immortal, and Varekai). I ignored DELIRIUM for this analysis because as it was Cirque’s first arena show – and a proof of concept and a specialty tour to boot, it would skew the analysis.
Show Start End Mo Tour ------------------------------------------------------------ Saltimbanco 7/31/2007 8/23/2009 25 NAT 9/17/2009 3/4/2011 18 Europe 3/9/2011 4/3/2011 1 Africa 4/21/2011 9/4/2011 5 Australia 9/21/2011 9/9/2012 12 World 10/10/2012 12/30/2012 2 NAT
Thus looking at the chart above, Saltimbanco visited 5 different markets – North America, Europe, Africa, Australia, “World” (as it bounced around from market to market), and North America again before the final curtain call. The data shows Saltimbanco spent most of its time in North America (27 months total), secondly in Europe (18+ months), and so on. By the end of its tenure, Saltimbanco spent 63 months touring throughout the world’s arenas, or the equivalent of 5.25 years.
Show Start End Mo Tour ------------------------------------------------------------ Alegria 5/27/2009 8/14/2011 27 NAT 9/7/2011 12/29/2013 27 Europe
Alegria was the next show to undergo conversion, and the data on its tour makes quite the contrast to Saltimbanco’s. The show visited only two major markets during its time (North America and Europe) but spent an equal amount of time in each (roughly 27 months). There’s nice synergy there, but why didn’t it tour around the globe like its predecessor? Either way its tour was cut short – at 54 months – or the equivalent of 4.5 years. Since both Dralion and Quidam were put on the road virtually in tandem, we’ll look at them together…
Show Start End Mo Tour ------------------------------------------------------------ Quidam 12/11/2010 8/11/2013 32 NAT 9/5/2013 4/20/2016 31 Europe Dralion 10/20/2010 12/23/2012 26 NAT 2/6/2013 10/20/2013 8 World 10/20/2013 9/6/2014 11 Europe 10/2/2014 1/18/2015 3 NAT
Quidam had quite the healthy tour, didn’t it? It spent just as much time out there as Saltimbanco did – 63 months, or the equivalent of 5.25 years – but like Alegria, Quidam only visited two major markets: North America and Europe – Why? Dralion didn’t fare as well: even though it visited more markets than Quidam (North America and Europe before bouncing around other markets of the world), its arena tour only lasted approximately 48 months, or just 4 years. Are we seeing a market saturation trend? Is Cirque finding it hard to market shows in this format to arenas it’s previously visited? Is it finding many stops unprofitable? Are there too many shows touring at once? Probably all of the above! The tour of Michael Jackson THE IMMORTAL is even bleaker:
Show Start End Mo Tour ------------------------------------------------------------ MJ Immortal 10/2/2011 9/2/2012 11 NAT 10/12/2012 4/21/2013 6 EUR 5/9/2013 1/14/2014 8 Asia-Pacific 2/28/2014 8/31/2014 6 NAT2/Mex
The special nature of the show almost precluded me from considering it – on average arena shows spend about 5 days per city for approximately 7 performances, the MJ Immortal Tour only performed 1-2 days per city with a very limited number of performances – but considering it did visit other markets besides North America and Europe it felt a worthy contender. But the data on its tour continues the trend: arena tours are getting shorter and shorter. In fact Michael Jackson THE IMMORTAL World Tour clocks in at only 31 months, or 2.58 years long. That might not be so shocking considering the trouble Cirque had getting the show booked and its turbulent tour itinerary later in its run (although it seemed to make boo-coo bucks!), it’s fascinating never-the-less because Varekai’s tour could be shorter!
Show Start End Mo Tour ------------------------------------------------------------ Varekai 12/13/2013 9/6/2015 21 NAT 10/8/2015 7/xx/2016 9 EUR
As it stands Varekai’s North American tour will come in at approximately 21 months in length, much shorter than any of the previous shows in this format. Furthermore, if the July 2016 rumor holds true, Varekai will spend only 9 months touring Europe. Wow! That means Varekai’s life-span will only be 30 months, or 2.5 years beyond the Grand Chapiteau. That’s three years less than Saltimbanco or Quidam!
Taking a look at Cirque’s arena tours like this also begs the question: why has Cirque ignored Australia, Japan and other markets in the Asia-Pacific region? Additionally, why hasn’t an arena show visited South America? Are there just not enough appropriate venues? Are there not enough interested parties to bring those types of shows in those markets? I really cannot say. But if Saltimbanco can visit Australia and MJ Immortal can tour Japan and other Asian markets, then it stands to reason other converted shows could as well, doesn’t it? Alas the answer might be very simple: those markets were just not profitable enough for Cirque to return converted shows there, and/or the markets may not have wanted them to return there. That still doesn’t answer why South America is ignored, but alas perhaps there’s just not the proper facilities to house a Cirque arena show there… but I can’t believe that’s true! Maybe it’s not worth converting shows anymore?
Meanwhile, while I’ve contemplated Varekai’s status in the arena line-up, three shows reached celebratory milestones of their own this past month: On February 21st, JOYA celebrated its 100th performance; on February 27th, Amaluna celebrated its 1000th performance in Houston, TX; and on February 28th, OVO celebrated its 2000th performance in Fukuoka, Japan. KA also celebrated its 10th Anniversary (official shows began on February 3, 2005; previews began November 26, 2004). And a few new projects were announced: HEART Ibiza collaboration with the Adrià Brothers – acclaimed restauranteurs in Spain. (It’s a partnership we’ve eluded to twice in the past and now it’s really happening), and Sama-Sama, a business partnership between Cirque du Soleil and Sama-Sama Creative Labs for the production of the first Sama-Sama Live Experience. Both of which you can read a little more about in our news section this month.
And hold on to your hats folks, but according to Amazon.ca, the special show that would never be filmed and released to home audiences, then was later broadcast via the web (in edited form and only to Canadians), is due to be released on Blu-ray/DVD next month. What exciting new thing could this be? Why Cirque du Soleil’s 30th Anniversary Grand Concert, of course! Amazon.ca has a pre-order page up and running for “Cirque du Soleil – The Great Concert/ Le Grand Concert Blu-Ray + DVD (Bilingual)” for $22.50 CDN (http://goo.gl/V0EiuC). The release date is listed as April 21, 2015 so it’ll be here soon! We can only thank Cirque du Soleil, Radio Canada, and/or CBC for putting the effort into releasing the broadcast for home consumption, so forgive our jibe earlier about it never coming out on DVD – because we think it deserves to be released! (And we’ll be first in line to get it!)
As for our features: Our friends over at TheChapiteau recently visited Varekai in Houston and had the opportunity to speak with Isabelle Corradi (Varekai’s Chanteuse) and Fernando Miro (The New Icarus) while there! The interviews were done via video but you’ll find a transcription of each within as well as two rather large press pieces – one from Robin Leach giving us a glimpse of One Night for One Drop 3 (which debuts March 20th), and a piece giving us a “first look” at Cirque du Soleil and Saban’s “Luna Petunia” project!
As always we also have the posts made to Cirque’s Facebook pages, and updates to Cirque’s touring schedule. Oh, and don’t forget to pick up Issue #4 of “The Chapiteau-Fascination! Magazine” here: < http://issuu.com/thechapiteau/docs/tcfmag_issue_4 >.
So, let’s get started!
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