How the Cirque du Soleil manages its venues
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What does Jorg and team to? They are in charge of finding and securing all the locations for the Cirque’s big top shows: “With my team, I manage all the locations around the world. Once our tour planning department decides on the tour plan, we find a location in each city. Then I have people locally who look for locations. This includes negotiating with the owners (a city, a private person, a company) and make a deal. Once we have the location, my team obtains all the permits from local authorities: fire department, traffic. This can represent 20-30 different authorities, but in some efficient cities, it can be reduced to 2-3 authorities.
How complex is he legal part of that work? Obtaining permits is a challenge in most cities. Some cities and countries don’t differentiate between temporary structures (tents) and permanent buildings in terms of legal obligations, which makes our job very challenging.
Do you help modify the laws? We don’t just accept the position of the local governments, we aim to change mindsets. Jean-François Simard from my team helps in this. He is part of many associations, gives conferences and talks to local authorities. We are taking every precaution and we know our infrastructure is very secure. But it is very complex since our structures go around the world and have to meet very different local standards. If one of our tents does not comply with one dimension of the law, we compensate with other measures. For instance, in 2014 we brought a show to Munich, the fire department told us the law says a tent 750sqm or bigger should be minimum 25 meters from another tent (for firemen trucks to access). We told them that with this law, we could not bring the show since our tents have to be placed together. They opened up and allowed our entrance tent and big top, installing an additional fire alarm system.
Do you think European standards will become mandatory in all Europe, avoiding local laws? I would love a regulation for all of Europe. Indeed, there is a European law… but every country and many local jurisdictions can overturn the European law and impose their own rules, which is a bit absurd since the European law is good and should be enough for the whole continent. That would be much more efficient.
How long in advance do you source spaces? Usually one-two years in advance.
You used to have shows mostly in tents, but you now also go to arenas. Why? The reason is that an arena show enables us to open new markets with a shorter stay (one-week for instance) and go to markets we would not visit with a tent show. For a tent show, we need a city with surroundings with more than 1M since we need the show to stay for a while and amortize these huge set-up costs. For instance in Zaragoza, we could not cover the costs. For a tent show, we have 70-75 trailers and 120 people, vs 30 trailers and 70 people on tour for an arena show.
You just acquired The Works Entertainment. Why, and what opportunities does this open? We are a leader in the live entertainment business. While we will continue to create shows centered on circus arts, we are looking at ways to expand our offering into new forms of entertainment, reaching new audiences and expanding our creative and production capabilities. The Works Entertainment will allow us to reach new audiences with creative content focused on illusion and variety shows. Moreover, they have a proven track record in small theatrical production, which complements our expertise in large-scale production and global touring, in addition to opening a global distribution network in small theaters.
Do you offer your shows in private events? We have our special events department called 45 Degree, to plan a private event customized to the customer’s needs.
