Daily Press: The economic crisis has certain consequences, even in the entertainment industry. Cirque du Soleil announced on Wednesday that it would eliminate up to 400 jobs – mostly at its headquarters in Montreal – because of the Canadian dollar exchange rate, the economic crisis and rising production costs for its performances, informs lefigaro.fr. The Canadian dollar has been soaring in the past years against the U.S. dollar, cutting the profits of the company.
6 comments:
I would be interested in knowing where all of Cirque's expenses are focused. I imagine payroll and maintenance of all of it's shows are a huge chunk of the monetary expenses, but one would think that with the amount of people going to see Cirque shows every performance, there wouldn't be an issue. Start up costs of a Cirque performance are massive including building all of the scenery and automation, altering the theaters to fit the show, rehearsing/training/coaching the performers, creating costumes and props, etc. Once all of those things exist, costs should drop dramatically and the only money they should be drawing is maintenance of the units and pieces. While I'm sure fewer people are going to see Cirque shows with the state of the current economy, Cirque's costs of operation should also be decreasing. It'd be interesting to know some of the numbers that are being run to determine that they are loosing money.
Cirque also has a large marketing department, tour advancers and managers, an office full of creatives, accountants and designers, they have to deal with the maintenance of their theatres (the tents), and each production has a number of support staff particular to the production (physical therapists, the riggers for said tents, etc). This article spoke to the company not being profitable last year, which would probably make sense because of the large capital expenditures they had and the rise of the Canadian dollar against the US, which is where nearly all of their money is made. Is that enough to justify the reduction in profit of $250 million? Perhaps not. But perhaps they've figured out how to trim the fat of such an expansionary era in the company's history, and now know how many people they need to MAINTAIN rather than GROW.
This is saddening and worrisome to hear, and yet a reality of the business and the current state of the world. Cirque has given such spectacular entertainment and art and revolutionized a new kind of performance. I wonder if there would be any other costs that could be cut in the show itself other than performers themselves. But in this business you have to do what you can to stay afloat, especially when times are tough. So hopefully now with these cuts the productions will be more sustainable and profitable without sacrificing the quality of the performances. As artists heading into a tough business, it is important to realize such realities, however disheartening they may be.
They said in this article that the issue is their canadian headquarters and the inflation of the canadian dollar. Their plan to cut cost is at the canadian headquarters, the office workers. Its unfortunate that more people will have to lose work but i think it is a positive thing to see that Cirque is still Relatively concerned with the show that they are producing and not solely where the money is going. I think there is a frequent issue where Producing companies will cut corners in their shows to save money at the cost of the quality of their show. Cirque did mention plans to find new ways to cut down costs of operating a show and it will be interesting to see where they cut these numbers and see what will happen this year now that Elvis is closed and gone Iris is gone and Zarkanna has been moved to Vegas and all the accompanying construction and preparation is complete and the show open now open
This makes me wonder which jobs within Cirque will be cut. Before coming to CMU, I didn't know a thing about Cirque. Now, I know the insane amount of drive and labor that goes into each production. Each element within a Cirque show is so crucial to the safety of everyone involved in the production, including the audience members. Each member of the crew is so incredibly important, as people's lives are literally in their hands. It worries me that 400 people will be fired from Cirque, but there are only so many people that they can cut while still having the integrity and safety of their shows remain constant. Sadly, this makes me think that we will start seeing less of Cirque overall.
I agree with Sean, it's certainly nice to know that Cirque is not deliberately sacrificing production quality in order to reduce its budget. It is sad to see such a giant in the industry have to do such a thing, but it provides a wakeup call to the quite difficult times we live in. After the rather unsuccessful Elvis and Criss Angel shows, I'm really not that surprised. Hopefully ticket sales will be on the rise again with the move of Zarkana to Vegas, which could help slightly in the long run.
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