
Cirque Du Soleil Files for Bankruptcy Protection - prostoalex
https://www.wsj.com/articles/cirque-du-soleil-files-for-bankruptcy-protection-in-canada-11593455498
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hn_throwaway_99
The great depression in live performances is truly a global tragedy. If you
think restaurants and barbershops have it bad, imagine theaters. For most of
them it's basically impossible to do social distancing and remain financially
solvent. People may be itching to go out to eat and get a haircut, but it will
be a long time before people are going to pack in to an opera house. Couple
that with the fact that audiences for ballet, opera, and orchestras skews much
older I'm any case, and I fear many of these art forms will face a
catastrophic blow in some cities.

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badrabbit
Live streaming a perfomance isn't an option? Wouldn't mind paying to live
stream my favorite orchestra while stuck at home. There was a thing about
spanish orchestra performing to an audience of plants and streaming it.

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ballenf
Loss of concessions could easily make it financially infeasible. Parking fees
also lost.

I end up out of pocket easily double the ticket price when all is done.

But the real killer is everyone will want the equivalent ticket of the cheap
seats. How do you stratify your prices while streaming?

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narag
I never liked circus. It was mildly interesting in tv or movies. The one time
that I went to a show, I was lucky enough to be far from the action: a lion
sprayed the two front rows. The smell was everywhere, everything had a sad
vibe, even (maybe specially) the clowns. Only trapeze artists saved the
evening for me.

Cirque du Soleil was an entirely different matter. Everything was shiny, cool,
happy. My son had a great time. I had a great time. Sad to see them close.
Hope they can come back to life somehow.

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tmikaeld
Cirque du Soleil certainly are different and work like a tightly knit family,
they do have the advantage of not being a traveling show though.

Having been back-stage at a circus many times for work, it's a really tough
and hard life to live in...

They eventually removed all of their animals from their show, not because of
external pressure, but because they could no longer care for the animals as
they used to.

For those that haven't seen their VR experience, try and see it, it's jaw-
dropping good.

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clintonb
Cirque has/had multiple traveling shows. They spend anywhere from a few days
to a few weeks in each city, depending on whether it’s an arena or a big tent
show.

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tmikaeld
I thought they where more permanent than just a few days, if so, that's
impressive considering their show quality (Which probably differ a lot if they
are travelling)..

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chrisdhal
They are in places like Las Vegas where they have multiple "permanent" (as in
years long runs) shows. They also have traveling shows that will stay for a
few days in a city and generally have their own tents and such that they
setup, they don't use existing buildings or arenas.

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paxys
Cirque was in trouble long before COVID. They expanded too quickly around the
world and spread themselves too thin. None of their shows in the last ~10
years have been blockbusters (most of them already retired), and the novelty
of the original Vegas ones has worn off. They tried a theater division which
failed. They had already started to restructure their operations and announced
layoffs as early as 2015. I imagine the current environment was the nail in
the coffin.

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hobofan
Maybe around the world is also where they found more success? My parents have
been visiting their shows in Germany for the last few years, and they've been
sold out (or close to it) every time. I'm sure that the permanent location in
Berlin they had planned would've also been a success for at least a few years.

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paxys
Most of their revenue comes from a handful of long-running shows in Vegas.
Tours and international expansions have been, for the most part, failures.

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malkuth23
Yeah. Mystere prints money, while the newer shows are often in debt for
decades.

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akampjes
For those that haven't seen a Cirque show, they've recently started putting
1hr samples on YouTube. Very very different to 'traditional' circus with a lot
more theatre where many of the performers are essentially professional
athletes with theatre skills.

[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=RDEMP3dHAEi0ZvUl0krV3T...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=RDEMP3dHAEi0ZvUl0krV3THZNw&feature=share&playnext=1)

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tomjuggler
Live entertainment is the least "Essential Service" of all. Most of the
professional performers I know are making masks to try and survive.

Hey, anyone looking to hire an ex-circus performer? My digital cv is here
[https://circusscientist.com/cv](https://circusscientist.com/cv)

Mostly Android apps but I can do Wordpress, data input, server management,
creative coding...

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smabie
What did you do in the circus? How'd you get into tech?

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tomjuggler
I run a successful entertainment business here in Durban, started off as a
street performer (Juggling, Unicycling, Rope Walking and Magic) after dropping
out of an I.T. degree course. Started off in tech just solving business
problems, like the company website and booking system, making my own LED
equipment for performance and also as a hobby for fun. Most of it is
documented on my CV, and on my blog and tutorial site
[https://circusscientist.com](https://circusscientist.com)

The show does go on(line):
[https://bigtopentertainment.co.za](https://bigtopentertainment.co.za)

My dad was a professional programmer (Cobol and Fortran!!) so I have been
programming since I was a kid actually.

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aeontech
If there is one company that deserves a bailout... Cirque du Soleil is a
cultural treasure.

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LatteLazy
This is exactly what bankruptcy protection should be for. Cirque (and 1001
other businesses) have a viable future ahead of them. They just need their
creditors to be held off for 6 months. The alternative is that a valuable
business is destroyed and no one (not even the creditors) gets much back.

As a brit, I envy the US their bankruptcy process. It is a lot less punative
than the UK system...

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neonate
[https://archive.is/984pa](https://archive.is/984pa)

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ogre_codes
Ouch, I was planning on seeing a Cirque show in May and obviously it was
cancelled and refunded. In my opinion, it's a good value for the money.
Hopefully we'll see them recover in some form or another.

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dehrmann
Earlier discussion today:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23691298](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23691298)

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cooldevguy
Can’t say we did not see this coming.

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narag
Why? Were they unsustainable in any way? When I went to their show, the
tickets were sold out very fast. It was long ago anyway.

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mav3rick
Lol ? Who is going to see this right now. Travel is fundamental to a live
show.

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narag
There are many business affected by the pandemic. Depending on where you are,
you can ask for some help from government. It won't work for every business of
course, but they have a strong brand and a nice trajectory.

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luord
Amaluna is by far the best live performance of anything I've seen in my life.

I seriously hope they manage to come back from this. Their shows are magical.

