We shot this really cool video last week on how millionaires have been able to buy their
way into space. One of them was Guy Laliberté who is a street performer. How does a street
performer afford going to space? Guy is one of the founders of Cirque du Soleil. And I’ve
been fascinated by their performances it for years. I’ve been to many of their shows
This story starts in Quebec. And two men with a passion.
To raise their first money Ste-Croix walked 56 km on stilts to convince the local government
to give them funding for a show called Waders of Baie-Saint-Paul. And it worked!
The Quebecan government gave them a grant, and their show was a critical success- but
like many critically successful things, making money was near impossible.
The first decent money finally happened in 1983. The three won a grant to host a production
for the anniversary of Jacques Cartier's trip to Canada. They raised $1.6 million and they
set their minds on . As a kid Circuses are cool. But once you grow
up, you start to see. Animals in chains. Depressed performance. Circus life.
If you’ve seen a Cirque du Soleil performance you know that it’s an entirely different
world. In the 80’s it was something nobody had seen before- and the world took notice.
The first performance was a hit, it struggled to gain traction outside of Quebec, but locals
loved it enough to allow it allow them to convince the government to fund two more years.
For almost a decade the company struggled and barely made ends meet and finally, in
1987 they found the recipe. Over the next few years shows expanded across
the US, with some even finding residences in Las Vegas. Then Paris, London and Japan.
I’m skipping through a lot of hurdles here to get to the good stuff. It wasn’t just
growth an expansion. It took them years of failure, bad shows, money lost- to finally
find the recipe to make their shows successful on the other side of the world.
But Cirque du Soleil did it.They were reinventing the Circus. And got to afford the best of
the best. They build their own costumes workshop, a first of its kind in North America. It could
produce 15,500 pieces of wardrobe and thousands of specialized footwear.
They had the most talented directors, artists, and designers to ensure that every show was
one of a kind. And on top of this machinery, this incredible
creative and logistics operation- came a show that would redefine everything: Dralion.
Dralion combined combine air, fire, and water, turn them into human form, and add culture and
magic. The first director quit in panic of the sheer magnitude of the production. But
Dralion left audiences in awe and it would set the stage for many more things to come.
This is less exciting than Dralion, but still important. Through this decade, Laliberté’s
co-founders left. Laliberté bought Gaultier out, and then Ste-Croix left to pursue his
own creative ideas. Coming into the 2000’s, Laliberté owned 95% of the company. He took
control and took the liberty to consolidate his vision.
Dralion landed them and Emmy, but beyond that, it gave them the recognition and credibility
to essentially partner with anyone. TV shows, mini-series, an IMAX film! In the 2000’s
we could not get enough of Cirque du Soleil.
Laliberté had plans to expand to a whole new level, literally. In 2009 he synchronized
performances across 14 cities, all connected to his act- from the International Space Station.
The first performance from space. The first Canadian space tourist.
His goal with this trip was to raise awareness on water issues on the planet. I don’t know
of people remember him for that, but the world notice. Funny story- Guy tried to pass his
$35M ticket to space as a company expense. The government did not agree- so he had to
pay taxes on it. But back on Earth, their shows were getting
bigger and better. O was a water based show with incredible syncronized swimmers. Varekai
inspired by the greek myth of Icarus. Zumanity was an R-rated show. Love- with music from
the Beatles, which many agree is their favorite show.
Resident shows allowed them to go all out on more elaborate permanent stages that didn’t
have to fit on trucks, or a carp. And the epitome of this was Ka.
I went to Las Vegas with my cousins when I turned 21. Saw my favorite band, visited the
Grand Canyon, jumped off a plane, but none of those things struck me as Ka.
I cried in awe sitting on that chair. I’m not kidding. I get goosebumps just talking
about it. It is the most incredible, jaw dropping performance I have ever seen.
Every other show about anything that have seen ever since is ruined. I’ve never seen
something better.
Ka happens on this floating plane of a stage, that is controlled by a robotic arm. It can
flip, and drop, or become a giant ice wall where performers fly off. There’s a sequence
where archers throw arrows at the wall, which lays a path for the protagonist to climb.
When artists fall, they fall off the stage, into the void and for a moment you forget
about the casino and the tourist traps outside, and you are in this world that they created.
It was a dream. The dream of reinventing the circus, consolidated. But on a summer Saturday
in 2013, that dream became a nightmare. Sarah Guillot-Guyard, a performer with over
20 years of experience fell down after the after the wire rope from which she was suspended
broke.
This happened in the middle of the final sequence of the show, in front of a live, sold-out
audience. Those who were sitting there told how they could hear her screams, and how they
then saw the other performers crying after they realized what happened.
The show was suspended for weeks and outside of that theater, the rest of Cirque du Soleil
was about to face their worst.
By the end of the decade Guy had reached too far, and quality started to decline. Banana
Shpeel was a show based on that was bashed by critics. Criss Angel Believe
was also a disaster. They called it a show with no core, where the tricks were evident
even before the illusion began. I saw that one. It was a tourist trap. Also,
I’m just a David Blaine fan. Zed, Viva Elvis and the Michael Jackson show
all flopped. The magic was fading away.
In 2013 the layoffs started. 50 executives and 400 more employees by January 2013. It
turns out the company had over $1Billion dollars in revenue in 2012, but it lost money.
The Cirque Du Soleil had saturated the market with its own recipe. It was too big, and there
was too much of it. Laliberté was forced to selling 90% of the company's stake to a
group of investors who still believed they could save the company.
They had ambitious plans, including an aggressive expansion in China, but they clean out the
house. They ended up replacing their finance director, COO, and vice presidents. Profit
was the only way to survive.
More flunked shows came upt (Soda Stereo, X Land of Fantasy, 'Twas the night before
Christmas). A major redesign happened as well as some acquisitions, including the Blue Man
Group.
And after a while, reviews started taking a turn again. The talks of a China expansion
fueled rumors of an IPO. There was a positive deja vu in the air. Finally, after a challenging
decade, the Cirque Du Soleil seemed ready to wow us again.
But, the world had other plans.
Lockdowns guaranteed one thing. No one was
going to the circus, and the impact was almost immediate. The Cirque Du Soleil shut down
dozens of shows all around the world. The company went from talking about a bright
future to laying off 95% of its workforce in months. By June 2020, the company filed
for bankruptcy protection.
The company's new CEO, Daniel Lamarre, said that the circus had zero revenue, none. Add
to this that there was a serious financial issue.
Everyone knew that Cirque Du Soleil was in debt. But nobody thought it was that bad.
The company had borrowed $900 million to finance their 2010’s revival. All these years of
expansion had meant one thing: the Cirque Du Soleil was knee-deep in debt.
So by filing for bankruptcy protection, the company depended on one, or more, stepping
in to save them.
Several companies bid to buy the company, and in the end, a group of investors led by
Catalyst Capital Group.
Their bet was that as the world opened its doors once again people want amazement. We
need awe and wonder to forget about the pandemic. Light at the end of the tunnel comes in the
form of Drawn to Life, a collaboration with Disnay which premiered just a couple of weeks
back in the old La Nouba building. I don’t now if it will be enough to save them, but
it’s hope at the end of the tunnel.
There’s shadenfreude in many of the stories we tell here- but not Cirque du Soleil. There
are few artistic, creative and logistics achievements like those of this company. They brought the
art of performances to the 21st century and sparked with nothing short of magic… and
it’s a damn shame that I had to talk about them in today’s company Forensics.
Their story is a balancing act. Let’s hope that they land this last trick.