Cirque sacrifies “Zumanity”; Gaming recovery vs. Covid

Covid-19 has claimed its first Cirque du Soleil casualty. Zumanity has gone permanently dark at New York-New York. We’ll miss the sexually charged show, which logged 7,700 performances in 17 (!) years. “We’re grateful to the cast, crew and team at Cirque for having created something very special.  We look forward to sharing plans for new entertainment programming at the New York-New York Theater in the months ahead,” said MGM Resorts International entertainment prexy George Kliavkoff. Given Coronavirus attendance restrictions, MGM will have plenty of time to mull its next offering. Zumanity seems to have been sacrificed to save Cirque’s five other Vegas shows. Not only has Phil Ruffin re-upped Mystere (and hopes for another Cirque spectacle at Circus Circus) but MGM has extended O, Love, Ka and Michael Jackson One for an unspecified number of years. There is still no timeline for reopening any of the spectaculars and, given the mandate of only 250 attendees per show, it just doesn’t make any sense now.

MGM suffered another blow on the entertainment front when David Copperfield‘s magic show had to be suspended indefinitely. The illusionist is fine but a member of his stage crew tested positive for Covid-19. The return of Copperfield was one of the few bright spots along the Las Vegas Strip, which just can’t catch a break. Copperfield promises to return ‘as soon as possible.’