{"id":8465,"date":"2012-02-09T10:27:12","date_gmt":"2012-02-09T18:27:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=8465"},"modified":"2018-04-17T08:59:27","modified_gmt":"2018-04-17T16:59:27","slug":"china-to-cirque-pas-encore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/china-to-cirque-pas-encore\/","title":{"rendered":"China to Cirque: “Pas encore!”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cirque du Soleil<\/strong>\u00ae has laid another oeuf<\/em> — or Las Vegas Sands<\/strong> has claimed yet another showbiz victim. Its resident show at Venetian Macao<\/strong>, Zaia<\/em>\u2122, is closing after a 42-month run<\/a>. Either the touchy-feely, eco-friendly whimsies of Zaia<\/em>\u2122 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<\/strong> 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<\/em>\u2122 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<\/em><\/a>, Jersey Boys<\/em><\/a> and Blue Man Group<\/strong><\/a> — all of which either couldn’t make their “nut” at Venelazzo<\/strong> or simply found better terms elsewhere. Heck, even former Venelazzo stalwart, Chazz Palminteri<\/strong>‘s A Bronx Tale<\/em> has defected to The Mirage<\/strong>. (Incidentally, a Cirque spokeswoman rebuts the in-house scuttlebutt — reported here — that Michael Jackson The Immortal<\/em> will be shunted into Aria<\/strong> instead of Mandalay Bay<\/strong>.)<\/p>\n

Some companies “do” entertainment well. Sands has ceased to be among them. And Macao<\/strong>\u2122, it must be reiterated, is not Las Vegas<\/strong>\u2122 (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<\/em>\u2122 tickets.<\/p>\n

Also coming up lame<\/strong> is the horseracing industry in Italy<\/strong>, which may get put down<\/a> by governmental austerity measures. It’s a saga familiar to U.S. readers<\/a>: a complacent and prohibitively expensive sport that was “assertive only in asking for taxpayers’ money.” Yes, we’ve definitely heard that tune<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cirque du Soleil\u00ae has laid another oeuf — or Las Vegas Sands has claimed yet another showbiz victim. Its resident show at Venetian Macao, Zaia\u2122, is closing after a 42-month run. Either the touchy-feely, eco-friendly whimsies of Zaia\u2122 were too … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[80,56,14,4,67,22,62,11,95,12,9,19],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8465"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8465"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8465\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21543,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8465\/revisions\/21543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}