Cirque du Soleil

[jesseps]

With Michael Jackson: The Immortal World Tour set to premiere Sunday at the Bell Centre, before touring across Canada this fall, the Cirque du Soleil is coming out of its comfort zone.

This is its first show conceived specifically for arenas.

 

"Le Cirque likes to take risks, and that is even more true this time around," Cirque du Soleil president and CEO Daniel Lamarre said in an interview earlier this week.

 

"Immortal is really taking us elsewhere. It's an interpretation of a rock show by Cirque du Soleil. In seeing the show this week, we decided, Guy (Laliberte) and I, that this would start a new type of show."

 

Arena shows comprise a big market already occupied by global music stars such as Madonna, the Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney and others, whose tour profits are enormous.

 

"There is big potential there," Lamarre said. "For us, our big challenge is to offer this type of show, but without having the star (Michael Jackson) there. We had to deal with those obstacles.

 

"We don't take anything for granted here. We are going into it with a lot of humility. This is a very risk undertaking for us, because we are hitting a new market and a way of touring that is very different to what we have done until now. But if we don't want to become stagnant, it's important to do it this way."

 

Dedicated to the creative universe of the late King of Pop, Michael Jackson: The Immortal World Tour will tour Canada and then the U.S. for a year before moving on to Europe and Asia.

 

"We hope to tour for four years," Lamarre said. "People may not be aware of it, but there will be many foreign promoters from Asia, Japan, South America and Europe that will be in Montreal on Sunday night to see what the Circus is doing in the context of a rock show. The reaction in Montreal will surely have an influence on the show's longevity."

 

In North America, the promoters were fairly easy to convince, Lamarre admitted.

 

"We had a card up our sleeve in Michael Jackson," he said. "Michael Jackson is still extremely contemporary. And all of this is done following (the planned) concert (This Is It) that would have had huge success in London. He sold thousands of seats in 24 hours for his shows in London. And we experienced something similar when we sold tickets in North America. We sold more than $40 million in tickets in 24 hours. This is unheard of."

 

Though familiar with moving from city to city with the equipment for its show under the tent, the Cirque du Soleil had to adapt to new logistics for the arena tour. A promoter at the Bell Centre told Lamarre that the previous biggest production ever staged at that arena required 26 trucks to move in all the equipment. "We have 38," Lamarre said.

http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/sunnews/entertainment/archives/2011/10/20111001-115613.html

 

 

 

Even though I wasn't a fan of his, I am seeing this tonight.

Modifié 2 octobre 2011 par jesseps

[VILLEMARIE]

Keep us updated after the show. This looks great!

[LindbergMTL]

Les montréalais ont de quoi être fiers. Certains d'entre eux sont en train de faire revivre la plus grande icone pop au monde, et faire beaucoup d'argent en passant (on se croise les doigts).

[jesseps]

It was quite interesting. A few technical problems and a few mishaps but it was enjoyable to say the least. I never had a chance to see the Elvis or Beatles show in Vegas. My parents said the Michael Jackson one was the best out of the 3.

 

The setup was pretty impressive. Best of luck, traveling with all that gear.

[jesseps]

Las Vegas Sun (Photos)

 

This was minutes before it end. It was interesting how they put different country flags together, I am just wondering why they had one with the Imperial Japan flag though.

 

It seems Michael did one tour stop in Montreal. Plus I do not even think if he ever stopped in Toronto. It is nice that Cirque and his family came together to do this. Plus have it start in Montreal.

 

One song near the start sounded like their was lyrics with "Montreal" in it, but I could have been hearing things.

Modifié 3 octobre 2011 par jesseps

[LindbergMTL]

Il y avait un article et une photo en premiere page de USA Today sur le show. Je me demande combien de millions de personnes ont vu ça.

[jesseps]

Il y avait un article et une photo en premiere page de USA Today sur le show. Je me demande combien de millions de personnes ont vu ça.

 

2. USA Today -- 1,830,594 weekday (2010).

 

Lets put that number into perspective. The G&M does that number in a week and USA Today does that in one day.

[Habfanman]

There's a cool Cirque documentary on the CBC website. Very interesting.

 

http://www.cbc.ca/doczone/episode/inside-the-cirque-1.html

[Habfanman]

There's a cool Cirque documentary on the CBC website. Very interesting.

 

http://www.cbc.ca/doczone/episode/inside-the-cirque-1.html