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Many children tell their parents they want to join the circus
but few actually do. Only one man has come back 20 years later with $1 billion
in the bank. Text by Christian Sylt
MY
FIRST JOB
Accordion player and street performer.
WHAT CHALLENGES MOTIVATE ME
I need two types of challenge: business and creative, and if I don't find
that in a project, I won't go.
HOW I ESCAPE FROM MY PROBLEMS
I do laps on circuits. Driving cars is a very good way for me to escape because
I drive fast and when you drive fast you have to focus so you don't have
time to think about your problems.
Guy Laliberté
is a man with a smile permanently spread across his face. In just 20 years
he has transformed his circus company Cirque du Soleil from an organisation that
employed 73 people, toured only one show at a time and played to around 270,000
people a year to one with over 3,000 employees, including over 600 performers
who will play to seven million people in 2005. Its annual revenues come close
to $1 billion and it's still growing.
Lalibertéhas breathed new life into one of the world's oldest
forms of entertainment. Spectators won't find any sawdust strewn across
the stage in a Cirque du Soleil show. Nor will they find any animals, as its
productions are high- tech spectacles with stunning sets, dramatically coloured
lighting and avant-garde acrobatics.
Lalibertéleads by example. He does not talk in the slow, measured tones
of classic company executives but instead prefers a turbo-charged stream of consciousness
that blazes away—his hands gesticulating and his face lit with enthusiasm.
Dressed in crazily-coloured jeans and a T-shirt, Lalibertélooks more street
entertainer than boardroom bigwig. He owns Cirque outright but rather than describing
himself as the chief executive, Lalibertésays he is its 'guide',
who orients and artistically directs the company.
ZUMANITY'We like the audience to have its own emotional association with the
acts,' he explains. No language is spoken in any of the shows, which means
that there are no cultural barriers to cross. And this has played a key part
in allowing Cirque to perform to around 42 million spectators in over 100 cities
since it was set up in 1984.
Laliberté's genius was in creating his own acts rather than simply
employing guest artists who would bring their routines with them. This allowed
Cirque's schedule to remain constant throughout the lifetime of a show
rather than being at the mercy of travelling troupes. Of course, it also brings
the added kudos that its acrobatic displays and stunts can't be found
elsewhere. But the jewels in Cirque's crown are its permanent shows in
Las Vegas and Orlando. With a rotating 100-foot-high stage, Cirque's latest
Vegas extravaganza, the martial arts-themed KA, cost $150 million to create—more
than all current Broadway productions combined. But because the hotel's
owner MGM Mirage picks up the $135 million cost of preparing the theatre, Cirque
only has to foot the remaining production costs. Expenses and profits on the
performances are split 50-50 between Cirque and MGM.
The investment is well worth it for the hotel. Cirque's erotic-themed
Zumanity show featuring costumes designed by Thierry Mugler opened at Las Vegas' New
York-New York hotel in late 2003, and helped boost the hotel's revenue
by 31% to $74 million in the fourth quarter of the year. And Cirque's
historical average sell out of 90% across its shows keeps the cash coming in
over the lifetime of the contracts, which are typically more than 10 years long. 'We
are capitalising on the return on investment in creativity,' says Laliberté.
The results speak for themselves. Analysts estimate Cirque's profit margin
is around 20% and its sales are growing by 15% to 20% annually. The tours now
bring in close to $500 million a year and the permanent shows around another
$500 million.
Not bad for someone who left his home in Montreal aged 14 with only a backpack
and an accordion. Lalibertéleft home not out of rebellion, but because
he had dreams of seeing different cultures. 'I found out that the best
way for me to live while I was travelling was to learn tunes on the accordion
and be a street performer,' he says.
Seeing countries and cultures around the world planted the seeds of ideas
which would later grow into set pieces in Cirque shows. While travelling,
Lalibertémet a group of street performers and became captivated by their
juggling.
He soon mastered the arts of fire-breathing, juggling and stilt- walking and
in 1979, on returning to Montreal after spending winter in Hawaii, Lalibertéfounded
a theatre troupe on stilts called Le
Club des Talons Hauts (The High
Heels Club).
His troupe found moderate success by organising and playing at festivals—in
1982 25,000 people turned up to see his show in Baie-St-Paul, a small resort
in Canada. But it wasn't until 1984 that Laliberté's big break
came. That year marked the 450th anniversary of the 'discovery' of
Canada and the government wanted an original concept for festival celebrations.
Contacts Lalibertéhad developed while he was arranging earlier festivals
suggested that he should make a presentation to the prime minister's office
in Quebec, and he says, 'eventually we convinced them that we had a great
idea.' Cirque du Soleil was born, named as a tribute to the time Lalibertéspent
under the sun in Hawaii.
Lalibertéand his childhood friend Daniel Gauthier were the company's
co-founders. A $1 million government contract (to provide 13 weeks of entertainment
in the summer of 1984) was a springboard that Cirque used to spread the word
it was different to a traditional circus, and success in the US followed in 1987.
Cirque was transformed from a single touring troupe into a global group. 'We
said we live or die in LA,' says Laliberté. The budget for this first
make-or-break foray out of Canada was so tight that had the show flopped, the
cast would have had to sell their new yellow and blue 1,500-seat Big Top to finance
their journey home to Montreal.
Living on the edge, Lalibertémade a deal with the festival organisers
in LA. If the organisers guaranteed to pack the opening night with celebrities,
Cirque would do everything else. The stars turned up, the reviews were ecstatic
and Cirque was literally an overnight success in LA. 'Since 1989 we've
turned a profit on almost all our shows,' says Laliberté, and he
puts this down to that fact that 'we made a business and artistic decision
not to multiply our shows. They're like jewellery, where we take a diamond
and polish it: we take care of our shows one by one.' The shows have a
rarity value: Lalibertéinsists that Cirque's new tour premiering
in April 2005 will be the last addition to its repertoire.
'There will only be six Cirque du
Soleil tours across the globe,' he says, but teasingly adds that this 'doesn't
mean, for example, that we won't do a magic show on tour under a big top.' And
flotation is not on the cards.
'If you go public everything changes,' says Laliberté,
adding 'all my life
I've been able to say yes or no. That means I've never had to compromise
artistically.' Not only is it difficult to imagine Lalibertégiving
up his reins to the trading rooms, the idea of him suited for lengthy board meetings
is equally unbelievable.
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