Incentive du Soleil: Big Top Incentives
July 07, 2008
By Leo Jakobson
Cirque du Soleil has joined forces with Corporate Incentive Travel to bring its unique combination of acrobatics and artistry to the incentive business through Cirque du Soleil Events.
While Cirque's legion of shows, particularly in Las Vegas (home to Love, KÀ, Mystère, O, Zumanity and Criss Angel Believe) have long been a popular feature of incentive trips, the company will now bring custom-designed acts to corporate events, says Craig Howard, national sales director of Alexandria, Va.–based Corporate Incentive Travel (CIT).
"I have been using acrobats or Cirque-type performers at vents for 10 years," says Howard. And while that was always a crowd-pleaser, "there is no thread running through the performance the way Cirque du Soleil does it. They create a theme. The reaction [to the real thing] has been phenomenal."
For one thing, every performance is custom-created for the event at which it will take place, Howard says. He provides Cirque's creative team in Montreal with a detailed account of the incentive program's theme, goals and participants, and then he and the client get on the phone with Cirque's team and discuss ways to incorporate the group's acts. The performances are by Cirque du Soleil performers and veterans who might want to step back from the grind of a daily show. And depending on the height of the space where the performance will be held, it can include trapeze acts and Cirque du Soliel's iconic chiffon fabric aerial acts.
One recent corporate performance was designed to reflect both that year's theme—"You-niversal"— as well as the next year's, which would revolve around the idea "around the world," Howard says. To highlight the international aspects, "Cirque created each act to be perceived as a little more international, around the world," he adds.
The performance can be as little as a seven-to-10 minute, single-performer act to warm up a crowd before an event to a half hour show with three or four acts after an awards dinner. And while the price is not insignificant, Howard says it is competitive with a top-name speaker and well under the cost of a musical act like Donna Summer or Earth, Wind and Fire. And the perceived value is immense. A 30-to-35 minute show, with three to four acts would run in the neighborhood of $80,000 for the talent. The cost of the staging, which CIT handles, is highly dependent on what infrastructure is already in place—during a recent four-day meeting/incentive event held by Fiat, the meeting hall used for presentations already had much of the equipment Cirque required, Howard notes.
"The reaction [by attendees] has been non-belief that their company would bring in Cirque du Soleil," says Howard, pointing to the perceived value of a Cirque du Soleil event. "As people leave the events, I hear comments like, 'I can't believe the company would spend half a million dollars on us."
And even better, they didn't.
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