From the Niagara Falls Review:
The Cirque Niagara tent has officially folded.
Citing assets of about $490,000 and liabilities totalling $6.7 million, Cirque X Inc., operating as Cirque Niagara, filed for bankruptcy Oct. 5, 11 days after its final performance of the 2007 season.
“We did all we could,” said Gabe Macaluso, who had been the company’s vice-president of new business and tour development. “Unfortunately, we got caught up in two terrible seasons. The traffic just wasn’t there.”
I don’t know what to make of this. I certainly don’t think it is all doom and gloom as some of the other comments made it out to be. It always seemed like an attraction the people didn’t ask for. I went to it twice last year. The first time I sat there through the entire thing wondering who would pay $70 to see this. The second time I enjoyed it a lot more as we had much better seats. Both times I went I got in free, and I still don’t think I’d pay $70 a person to go and see it.
Last year they raved about how great business was, and now they are saying there were two terrible seasons. This is one of my big peeves with the industry. You just can’t tell what is the truth when it comes to discussions about business levels. I have contacts in several businesses, and my impression is that the last 2 years haven’t been great, but they also haven’t been terrible. Each year they’ve been up year over year. The increase might not be much, but there are still increases.
The bottom line for me is, I don’t think the industry will be hurt by the closing of Cirque Niagara/Avaia. I admit it is never good to see a place close, but something else will come in its place, or people will use their money somewhere else.