Ticket sales for Corteo are not great this year in Columbus. The weekends are selling well, but weekday houses have a lot of empty seats. This is sad for a couple of reasons: 1) less hours available for the local hires (i.e. me); and 2) increased chances that a future Cirque du Soleil show may not even come to Columbus while on tour.
I don’t know how ticket sales in Columbus for Delirium were, but I know that they were good for Varekai. I see a couple of problems which might be contributing to this drop in sales: 1) Tickets are not cheap. At $75 pop for good seats (double for the VIP package), ticket prices are at least on par with touring Broadway shows. 2) The economy. With gas prices rising every day (Ohio just had another $0.25/gallon jump this week), some people might have to choose between going to a show or filling up their SUV for the week. 3) Location. Varekai was located right in the downtown Arena district, with lots of daily visibility to everyone working downtown. This year’s location at the fairgrounds was probably cheaper to rent, but with a much less convenient location.
Here’s hoping sales pick up soon (think of it as supporting the local economy folks…my checkbook will thank you).
I’ve got a new gig. I’m working as an usher for Corteo, the most recent Cirque du Soleil production to stop by Columbus, OH on its touring circuit. Yesterday we had a 4-hour training session, which was mostly boring (I volunteer as an usher all the time, so a lot of the training seemed redundant). The people were great, though, and completely enthusiastic, and I think I’m going to really enjoy the experience.
One highlight of the day was sitting under the big top to learn the finer points of seating people, and in the background we got to watch several of the performers rehearsing. Then, we got to actually interact with one of the performers as there were some actual training points we needed to learn about her particular act. The performer appears to be a middle-aged woman, but she stands only about 2 1/2 feet tall (perfectly proportioned). In her act, appropriately titled “Helium” she is completely suspended in the air by six (large) helium balloons. The main character of Corteo (a clown who is imagining his own funeral celebration), sends this little character sailing out over the crowd inviting them to put their hands up to help her out. Being just slightly under neutral buoyancy, she can fly around as long as she wants to if she can jump off people’s outstretched hands when she floats too low. As ushers we needed to know what to expect as well as problem areas where we may need to step in and provide our own hands to keep her from floating down to the floor prematurely.
As ushers (also called Cirquadors), we will, of course, get to see the show multiple, multiple times. The majority of the usher positions are actually inside the tent, but there are a few positions outside the tent as well, and we will all rotate through all the positions.
We met a small group of usher-folk, called followers, who actually ‘follow’ the show around the country as it tours. I don’t imagine the pay is outstanding, and room/board is not provided, but if I was single it would be somewhat tempting to do for awhile as an excuse to travel the country. After all, what kid hasn’t dreamed of running off with a circus?
