The Road to Success for Cirque du Soleil

Dare to bet everything on tomorrow

Guy Laliberte was born in 1959 in Montreal, Canada, into a middle-class family, his mother a nurse and his father a public relations manager for Aluminum Canada. The family was not very rich, but it gave him the most valuable thing, that is, the most free environment to grow up. All of this contributed to Jean-Laliberte's maverick personality and his ability to act on his pursuits without hesitation.

As a teenager, Laliberte began earning a modest income by playing the accordion on the streets of Montreal. The accordion he played was found in his father's closet, and when he first saw it in a corner where it had been gathering dust for a long time, he was so intrigued that he casually strummed the keyboard and was delighted to discover that it still made a beautiful sound. Laliberte could not wait to ask his father if he could give this accordion to himself, his father looked at his son full of joy and anticipation, very kindly nodded yes. In this way, an accordion slowly pulled open Laliberte's different life.

At the age of sixteen, Laliberte decided to pursue the performing arts as his life's work. When he was in college, he participated in several performances that caused a stir at school, so he decided to drop out of school and devote himself to his passion for performing arts. Thereafter, Laliberte hitchhiked on the first magical journey of his life - traveling through Europe. This experience opened the eyes of the young Laliberte in a big way. He met many street jugglers, jugglers, stilt walkers and fire swallowers. These folkloric arts captivated him and inspired a young man's curiosity and longing. Although he regretted that he could not learn all those juggling skills at once, those magical skills were left as a special imprint in the heart of the young Laliberte.

Laliberte returned from his travels in 1979, when he was exactly 20 years old. He initially found a job at a hydroelectric plant, but after only three days, he lost his job because of a labor movement. Laliberte then chose to join an artistic troupe of stilt walkers, then led by Keels Sticklocks. Soon, the young Laliberte formed a team of his own for street performance, using a youth club as a center of activity. He and Keels-Sticklocks organized a summer show in the river towns of northern Quebec, Canada, which was helped by Daniel Gauthier, who later became Laliberte's business partner, and in 1984 Laliberte succeeded in convincing the Quebec government to sponsor his troupe's $1.5 million contribution to Canada's 450th anniversary celebrations. Laliberte recalls, "It was a difficult experience, and we encountered many of the problems that a large circus can encounter when performing for the first time. First there was the difficult negotiation with the government, then the tent collapsed on the first day of our show, and even more difficult was how we were able to recruit an audience to see our show." Laliberte said that he was able to win simply because they were young, daring, and could conquer anything with confidence, and that is what allowed them to survive. The transformation the show brought to Cirque du Soleil was decisive. Cirque du Soleil not only made a net profit of 40,000 dollars, but also became the new star of this national celebration. For this time the audience was no longer just the scattered inhabitants of Quebec, but the whole of Canada. Since then, Laliberte has been touring the country with his circus on a regular basis. Cirque du Soleil gradually became Canada's Cirque du Soleil.

In 1987, Cirque du Soleil, which had only been in existence for three years, earned entry into the Los Angeles Festival of Arts, which was seen as the most crucial step in the development of the circus. Initially a Quebec government official recommended Cirque du Soleil to the head of the Los Angeles Festival, Thomas Schumacher, was rejected by Schumacher without hesitation, "We are a festival, we do not need circus." Frustrated Laliberte was not willing to lose this opportunity, he went to great lengths to hand the video of the Cirque du Soleil performance to Schumacher. After watching the video, Schumacher flew straight to Quebec, where he watched a few more Cirque du Soleil performances, and immediately made the decision to change the fate of Laliberte and Cirque du Soleil. In the Cirque du Soleil shows that Schumacher watched, his favorite was "We Reinvented the Circus". And it was this show that Cirque du Soleil brought to the Los Angeles Festival. Laliberte had to pay almost everything he had to be able to perform at the Los Angeles Festival. It took almost all of Cirque du Soleil's savings since its founding. Although Cirque du Soleil's profitability had improved dramatically, it was not enough to cover the increasing costs of the show. If the show was unsuccessful, Cirque would have to return to its old camp in Quebec, and might even have to disappear. In the end, Laliberte was able to push through and against all odds, Cirque du Soleil's name appeared on the bill for the opening of the Los Angeles Festival of the Arts. Laliberte's demeanor is still a bit heavy as he recalls, "That night was a huge gamble, and what I was betting on was everything I had, and if we had failed to perform, then we would have been so screwed up that we wouldn't have had the money to travel back to Quebec." Of course, Laliberte and all the members of the circus won the bet, the show was a huge success, and this success was unprecedented in the history of Cirque du Soleil, not only to obtain more than 1.5 million dollars in net profit income, but also received a large number of invitations to perform the order, which means that their future performances will be out of the country. The success of the show in Los Angeles, but also let the Cirque du Soleil into a new focus, people began to decline and gradually faded out of the people's field of vision of the circus show has a new understanding, people see is not a by the lions, elephants, rings of fire and so on these circus traditional program, but imagination and creativity. More unexpected for Laliberte and the circus is that they became a hot topic in Hollywood, which means that their influence has touched the world's top entertainment altar. To this day, Laliberte insists on revisiting the 1987 show when talking about his success -- because without 1987, without Los Angeles, Cirque du Soleil might not have gotten off the ground as well as it did.

Freedom comes from independence

The success of the L.A. show brought new opportunities for Laliberte and his circus. The famous American Columbia Pictures came to the door to ask for cooperation, to produce a movie based on the story of Cirque du Soleil. After the contract was signed, Dorn Steele, then president of Columbia Pictures, organized a social meeting, to which many celebrities and industry professionals were invited, and at which he announced the collaboration to the public. Among those invited to the social were circus show stars, but there was no place for Laliberte. "He seated my stars and left me alone." Though it was long after the fact, Laliberte's heartfelt resentment is always unspoken when he recalls the experience. "They wanted the rights to our story and our trademark, and they acted as if that made them own Cirque du Soleil. So I walked out of that announcement and immediately called my lawyer and told him I was going to stop the deal." Suffice it to say that at the critical moment, Laliberte realized that this wasn't a fair partnership, but that the other side was using a business ploy to try to buy everything Laliberte had worked so hard to build up about the circus. After this fiasco, Laliberte came to a thorough realization that no matter what kind of cooperation he had with whichever party in the future, he cautioned himself that he must maintain his independence in the operation of his business and avoid outside influences to the greatest extent possible. Laliberte and his business partner Daniel Gossel have been very consistent that they should ensure that the company's shareholding in a controllable range. Because only on the basis of absolute equity guarantee can be free to make decisions, can be in the necessary circumstances to take decisive measures, even at the risk of greater risk. It is such a spirit of independence and freedom that allows Cirque du Soleil to continue to have new transcendence.

In light of the lessons learned from working with Columbia Pictures, Laliberte limited himself to signing a short-lived contract with the famous tourist destinations of Santa Monica and San Diego, even though Cirque du Soleil was later invited to do so. That year, Cirque du Soleil received $4 million in funding for its activities and made a net profit of $1.5 million. Soon Cirque du Soleil received another phone call from Steve Wynn, known as the god of the entertainment industry. Wayne told Laliberte that he could provide Cirque du Soleil with a theater in his hotel, and said that Laliberte would have absolute creative control over the shows that starred in the theater. Laliberte was pleased with the partnership.

Soon, Laliberte was preparing to stage a new Cirque du Soleil production there, "Mystère," which differed from those that had been staged in Las Vegas in that it had a more somber tone throughout. Unsure that such an entertaining play would be acceptable to audiences, Wayne disapproved of staging it in the venue he offered and told him in a warning tone, "If you stage Mystère here, the Las Vegas motorists will crucify you." But Laliberte insisted on not budging from his idea, and slowly, reluctantly, Wayne agreed. Mystère opened in Las Vegas in December 1992, but tickets sold out by March of that year. Laliberte says poignantly, "Mystère made us realize a completely different standard of perception of the industry, the operating capital it gave us, the influence and the credibility."

In 2001, Laliberte made another explosive move. He bought the Cirque du Soleil shares of his longtime business partner Gossel for an undisclosed sum, cementing the maverick CEO's absolute controlling interest in the company, which he owns 95 percent of to this day.

The Card show was a turning point in Cirque du Soleil's performance repertoire, in which a combination of technological inputs and highly skilled human performances elevated Cirque du Soleil's show to a new level, a theater that reportedly took four years just to develop from idea to performance. As a result its $165 million price tag is also unprecedented. One of the most important aspects of the show is that it changes the thousands of years-old rule that a stage can only be flat, as giant robots can control a 360-degree turn of the stage. A Chinese acrobat commented after seeing the Cirque du Soleil show: "The combination of technology and art in the Ka show, the stage that can be lifted, pushed and pulled at will or even completely erected, the marvelous use of Chinese martial arts, opera and acrobatics, the clever coordination of live performances and computerized projections, the amorous nature of hand-shadowed performances, and the visual impact of the huge projections, break the our entire knowledge and imagination of stage and acrobatics, unbelievable." In order to achieve the effect of making audiences cheer wildly from the bottom of their hearts, Laliberte spared no expense in investing heavily in the development of new repertoire. Cirque du Soleil's famous "O" show is also one of the shows that almost combines the highest level of human performance and the most advanced technological inputs, which creatively transforms the stage of the show in an instant into a sea of water for the performers to jump from a height of ten meters. In Laliberte's own words, "We're not reinventing circus, we're just repackaging it in a more modern way." It's all just a simple dream for Laliberte, which he pursues with dedication and passion.