Cirque du Soleil® has laid another oeuf — or Las Vegas Sands has claimed yet another showbiz victim. Its resident show at Venetian Macao, Zaia™, is closing after a 42-month run. Either the touchy-feely, eco-friendly whimsies of Zaia™ were too daft for Chinese audiences or Sands’ tradition of high rental costs were too much for a show that was a poor draw, playing to 40% of capacity. Sands spokesman Ron Reese does well to point out that, in Vegas, a 3.5-year run is deemed successful … unless you’re Cirque, that is. Its business model is predicated on recouping enormous up-front costs over an extended period of time. Hence all those 10-year contracts. So for Zaia™ to pull up lame 78 months from the finish line hardly counts as a victory. But it’s in good company, at least, joining Phantom of the Opera, Jersey Boys and Blue Man Group — all of which either couldn’t make their “nut” at Venelazzo or simply found better terms elsewhere. Heck, even former Venelazzo stalwart, Chazz Palminteri‘s A Bronx Tale has defected to The Mirage. (Incidentally, a Cirque spokeswoman rebuts the in-house scuttlebutt — reported here — that Michael Jackson The Immortal will be shunted into Aria instead of Mandalay Bay.)
Some companies “do” entertainment well. Sands has ceased to be among them. And Macao™, it must be reiterated, is not Las Vegas™ (no matter how much as American casino executives continue to think otherwise). The punters come for the gambling, stay for the gambling and then go home. Nobody books a trip to Macao just because they’ve scored some Zaia™ tickets.
Also coming up lame is the horseracing industry in Italy, which may get put down by governmental austerity measures. It’s a saga familiar to U.S. readers: a complacent and prohibitively expensive sport that was “assertive only in asking for taxpayers’ money.” Yes, we’ve definitely heard that tune.
