Cirque du Soleil’s Great Park run a success

By SEAN EMERY | THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

IRVINE – Great Park and Cirque du Soleil officials are celebrating what they say was a successful first-run for the world famous performance troupe at the park’s newly built festival site, with an estimated 100,000 tickets sold for four-dozen performances, and about $250,000 raised by the city through parking fees.

From early January to mid-February, Cirque turned the Great Park’s newly created 14-acre festival site into the big-top home of its traveling production of Kooza, the first high-profile performance group to set up shop at the park.

“It is always challenging when we start with a site, because we need to make sure the community is aware of where we are,” said Scott Wallace, Kooza’s general manager. “But it was great to be there, and we are very happy that we will be able to come back.”

It wasn’t immediately clear how Cirque’s Great Park run matched up financially with its previous forays at the OC Fairgrounds in Costa Mesa, although Wallace noted that they are operating under a much different economy now, and felt that the Irvine shows matched up to their expectations.
“It’s a new site for us, so it takes a while for people to get used to it being somewhere new. The longer we are there, the easier it will be for people to access it and know where it is,” Wallace said. “We enjoy being there, and it is always a good experience being in Orange County.”

Despite some traffic woes among patrons driving to Cirque’s inaugural performance, Great Park leaders say they were able to accommodate the big crowds.

“We made some adjustments prior to the second performance and proceeded to park more than 35,000 cars successfully over the next six weeks,” Great Park CEO Mike Ellzey said. “In my experience with large event traffic and parking preparations this was one of the most efficient programs I’ve ever seen.”
The move to the Great Park allowed Cirque to avoid the $500,000 lease fees they had previously paid at the OC Fairgrounds.

Ellzey on Thursday told the Great Park’s Board of Directors that the parking fees had resulted in a $250,000 profit for the park.

While Cirque’s agreement allows it to return up to eight times before January 2018, they usually wait two years between performances, Wallace said.

Wallace said the next production to make its way to the Great Park may be “Ovo,” which Cirque describes as an “immersion into the teeming and energetic world of insects.” Ovo is on tour in San Jose before moving onto an East Coast run.

Great Park leaders believe the Cirque performances have already brought renewed attention to the park, with thousands of people taking advantage of a temporary ice rink brought into the nearby preview park for a month-long “Great Skate” season.

Other outside event organizers are taking advantage of the Great Park festival site as well, with the Bee Hive Family Festival and the Family & Pet Expo scheduled for March.

https://www.ocregister.com/news/park-236598-great-cirque.html