Simon Painter-Producing the Biggest Magic Show in the World

Episode Summary

Simon Painter @theillusionistslive is the creative mind behind the biggest magic shows in the world, The Illusionists, Circus 1903, Le Noir, and Adrenaline. In this interview we explore ways in which we can find the balance between being good creatively and making sure that we are making money with our projects. We also talk about the importance of, on the one hand, following our dreams and on the other hand, to always keep on doing and trying many different things because what really matters in the entertainment industry is our experience.

Episode Notes

Transcript

Mario Filio:

This is La Pizarra, a place where we explore creative minds in the entertainment industry on both sides of the mic and the camera. Here is your host, Nicky Mondellini.

Nicky Mondellini:

Welcome to another episode of La Pizarra. My name is Nicky Mondellini. I’m your host, and today we’re going to talk about magic in a big way. For that, we’re going to explore the creative mind of the man behind the biggest magic shows in the world, and that is Simon Painter. He is the executive producer and creative director of The Illusionists, Cirque, or Circus, 1903, Le Noir, Adrenaline, and The Illusionists too. You can check out their website, theworksent.com. I’m going to link to that in the show notes. And you can also follow them on Instagram @theillusionistslive. You can see all of their videos on YouTube and of course also on their website. Well, The Illusionists is now the biggest magic show in history, smashing box office records in Sydney, London, and Broadway. So stick around and let’s find out how it all happens with Simon Painter.

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Nicky Mondellini:

Simon Painter is executive producer and creative director of The Works Entertainment, which is one of the most successful live entertainment companies in the world, and has created and produced first class entertainment in over 400 cities and 40 countries. Their award winning shows have smashed records multiple times around the world. Their first collaboration was Le Grand Cirque at the Sydney Opera House. Later Simon created The Illusionists: Witness the Impossible with his partner, Tim Lawson, which sold out its season at the Sydney Opera House even before opening night, something that has happened in arenas and theaters around the world, along with its sequels, The Illusionists 2.0 and Illusionists: Turn of the Century. The touring shows include Cirque Paris, Le Noir: the Dark Side of Cirque, and The Unbelievables, and their latest productions include Circus 1903: the Golden Age of Circus, and Now You See Me.

Nicky Mondellini:

Simon, welcome to La Pizarra. I’m so happy you could join me today.

Simon Painter:

Thanks so much for having me.

Nicky Mondellini:

Well, it’s amazing to read about all of the productions that you guys have going on because, my goodness, in over 400 cities, this is just crazy. I mean, how does that get to happen? Okay. Let’s just backtrack a little bit. How does a classical violinist end up being the producer of the biggest magic shows in the world?

Simon Painter:

Well, it certainly didn’t happen by accident, but it wasn’t the path that I would’ve ever chosen, that’s for sure. So, I mean, it’s quite a convoluted story, but I was the fiddle player in Spirit of the Dance, which was the Irish dance show, very similar to Riverdance and Lord of the Dance, and I traveled around the world with that show.

Simon Painter:

The chap in charge of it, David King, he was like a very old-fashioned impresario of theater. So he kind of didn’t go by the normal theater rules of how you make shows, and I learned a huge amount from him. Essentially I worked for him for years, traveling around the shows and playing the fiddle. I was in Vegas and Israel and all the way across Europe and Australia and China and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, really bizarre and weird places, often playing… Some nights we’d play 10,000 people a night, others would be like 500. It would be just a smorgasbord of venues.

Simon Painter:

And eventually I ended up in South Africa producing. At the time it was sort of like African Riverdance. I saw this troupe of dancers and they were doing something very similar to Riverdance, but in Africa. So I was like, “This is it. This is the next big thing.” So I ditched the fiddle and I created what was to become the largest dance show in the history of South Africa. I was 23 and I created… I had lots of partners in South Africa and I was very much out of my depth. I didn’t really know what I was doing at all, but I just knew I had a great concept.

Simon Painter:

So I made a poster. David, my boss from Spirit of the Dance, his whole thesis was you make the marketing for the show first. And then if the marketing works, then you make the show. So I made the marketing, everyone loved it, and then I started making the show. It was due to open in about the beginning of January. I was probably 23 years old or something, and I worked on it for about a year. I had lots of partners and it was not easy at all. Africa is a crazy place. Johannesburg was wild, like dangerous and crazy. And we were just doing a deal, there were quite a few well known people involved with it, and we were just in the final stages of rehearsals, there were billboards up on the motorway, the theater was about to open, and I was drinking champagne, toasting my success with my then girlfriend, and the phone went and my investor had died of a heart attack. And that was it. The show never opened.

Nicky Mondellini:

Oh my goodness. Unbelievable.

Simon Painter:

So I lost all my money and then it was, we had to go and tell everybody it was off. It was terrible. And then the guy that died, he was quite a good friend. So it was like, it was just this double whammy of like-

Nicky Mondellini:

Yeah. I can imagine.

Simon Painter:

He died. He was pretty young as well. And it was just chaos, like awfulness. And I was trying to revive it every which way I could and try and find more money, and eventually I just had to fly home with my tail between my legs. But I bumped into the guy that had given me work for all those years on the violin, and he said, “Hey, go and play the fiddle again.” So I’d gone full circle. I ended up on the back of the bus playing the fiddle [inaudible] and randomly through a series of bizarre events, ended up living in Monte Carlo with a show [inaudible] who was part of the show.

Simon Painter:

I did that for quite a few months. I was the poorest person in Monte Carlo, I would say, but it was pretty great place to be. And I bumped into my old boss at the Cafe de Paris and he said he was making a big circus. Would I like to produce it? Because he obviously heard about the craziness in Africa and knew that I was more than just a fiddle player. And so I was dispatched to China to make him a show that was similar to Cirque du Soleil, like an epic scale circus show. And so I did, and I went to China and I chose 50 Chinese acrobats and we built this show, and it opened in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, because he’d just bought a huge theater there, and it was called Le Grand Cirque and it was a giant Cirque du Soleil type show and it was wildly successful.

Simon Painter:

I mean, it was the first thing I’d ever produced. It did really, really well. It was there for the summer season. So it was like, you know, it’s a tourist town, but it used to do 25,000 people a week. So it was a pretty big show in a 3,000 seat theater. Eventually we ended up taking it to the Sydney Opera House in Australia and it was just the right place at the right time.

Simon Painter:

I didn’t own the show. I was an employee. But it was my kind of energy and, I suppose, direction behind it or creation behind it. It was wildly successful in Sydney, and then we expanded. I had five versions of that show running around the world. In London, in Sydney, and we came to Mexico, and all over the world really. And then eventually I just got… The show was making loads of money and I was like, “I should own one of these myself.” And so me and my wife, Kirsty, who you know, of course-

Nicky Mondellini:

Yes, of course. Not very well. Yes.

Simon Painter:

We had enough of Myrtle Beach and traveling around, so we moved to Los Angeles, to start a business really in theater and to do something new. We didn’t realize… We’d been living in South Carolina, so I got here and was like, “Oh my God.” It was so expensive. And then in my first or second month here, the people from the Sydney Opera House phoned me and said… because we did a lot of shows with them, by that point. Every summer we’d go and do a new show. And they said, “We’ve lost our show for the summer. What have you got?” So I said, “I’ve got an ice skating show, a variety show or a magic show.”

Simon Painter:

And they liked the idea of a magic show, so I made The Illusionists, and it was just a poster and that’s how it all started. So we went to Sydney that Christmas with a magic show. The idea was that we were going to contemporize magic much like Cirque du Soleil had contemporized circus. We were going to do the same thing to magic. And it was amazing. I mean, it was incredibly stressful. The idea was that you took seven of the best magicians in the world and you made them into superstars and contemporized them. It had a live band. Everything about it was just amazing.

Simon Painter:

The show was good, but the marketing was amazing, and we sold 41,000 tickets in 10 days. And then I don’t know what happened after that. It just went crazy. We were just really lucky. Magic hadn’t been seen for a long time, much like circus. When Cirque du Soleil came along, circus was almost a dirty word. It was like a dusty tent with sad animals. And Cirque du Soleil completely re-contemporized that whole art form. We did the same to magic on a smaller scale. That was the idea. I mean, it’s taken, I don’t know, hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars at the box office. It’s the highest grossing show in the history of Broadway, that’s not a musical. Did $3.2 million in a week. So it’s had huge successes.

Nicky Mondellini:

That’s wonderful. Yes. Yes.

Simon Painter:

So that’s how it happened, by complete happenstance, that we got into this position. I knew nothing about magic.

Nicky Mondellini:

My goodness.

Simon Painter:

So that’s the very long-winded, roller coaster journey of how I went from an unemployed fiddle player to owning a massive magic show.

Nicky Mondellini:

And that, Simon, totally speaks about you, who you are as a person. You were thrown into the ring, you had to overcome a lot of adversity. I mean, anybody after what happened in South Africa would’ve said, “Oh, you know, I’ve had enough. I’m never going to try to produce any show ever again because of all of what happened.” But actually, I mean, it was just circumstances. Everything was ready and set and it’s just about the tragedy of the death of the investor. But you had set up everything, you had done all of the work, right?

Simon Painter:

Yeah. I mean, this has happened multiple times. So that was one particular disaster, but I had others where, I mean, this happened. If I look back through my career, so many times we’ve been taken out by things that are beyond our control. So I set up a show in Florida, a version of La Grand Cirque. I raised all the money. I put the tent up. And it was the year… The day we opened, it was the Gulf Water oil accident, exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, and so basically the tourism dropped by 95% and the show was over. I don’t know if you remember a volcanic event happened in Iceland and it meant that no one could fly in Europe.

Nicky Mondellini:

Yes, that’s right. Yes.

Simon Painter:

So we’ve been taken out by oil slicks, hurricanes, ash clouds, death of investors, snowstorms in New York-

Nicky Mondellini:

And the pandemic.

Simon Painter:

I mean, it’s a very risky business from that. People don’t really realize those external forces. Like terrorism. I mean, I did a big show in London and it was during the Paris terrorist attacks. Things happen. So it’s a crazy business. You got to expect some unforeseen things to happen and it’s more regular than people will imagine, I think.

Nicky Mondellini:

Definitely. Oh my goodness. Yes. There’s so much to overcome. And you learn so much from all of that. For example, what has been one of the craziest things that has happened during the shows that you’ve had to just fix any way you can and go on? Because of course with all the variety of shows, of the acts that you have, you know, escape artists, and you have arrows shooting across the stage, and audience participation and everything. So what is one of the craziest things that has happened?

Simon Painter:

I mean, all sorts of things. My dress rehearsal for my first ever show, the guy fell off the top of the Wheel of Death during the rehearsal-

Nicky Mondellini:

You got to be kidding me.

Simon Painter:

… and broke everything. So that happened during the dress rehearsal. People have been shot with arrows. People have had some pretty crazy accidents. Yeah. I mean, we do two things, really, we do magic and circus, but there’s lots of crazy stunts. And we’ve definitely seen our fair share of… I’ve been sitting in the ER visitors’ room more times than I’d like to remember, to be honest. So yes, it does happen.

Nicky Mondellini:

I can believe that. Yes. And so what do you do? I mean, people have bought their tickets. The show has to go on. Do you end up doing like somebody else, tell them to extend their act, or… Because of course, if that performer can’t do it anymore, if they’re in the ER…

Simon Painter:

Yeah. But look, the show always goes on somehow. I mean, it always amazes me… Shows are always very stressful putting them on, especially the opening of them, but somehow they always happen. And sometimes you got a really amazing performer and he’s out, and it could be anything. He might just have the flu and he’s out. Oh my God, how are we going to do it? And somehow it always does happen. So, the show must go on type thing. I just think that mentality is just what it is and everyone just gets on with it. And so, yes, that’s very much front and center.

Nicky Mondellini:

Definitely. And Simon, I know now you’ve partnered up with Cirque du Soleil, so how is that now? How has that changed the production side of it, or the marketing, or everything with The Illusionists and stuff?

Simon Painter:

Well, so we sold our company to Cirque about two and a half, three years ago. And so it was an opportunity to kind of do what we do with a bit of a wider footprint. So that’s how it’s going to change [inaudible]. To be honest, the plan has not really come together yet because of the pandemic. We were just waiting to roll out this thing and then the pandemic hit. So it’s been a bit crazy. But we’ve got tons of stuff in the plans for the next six months to a year. So it’s quite exciting what’s on the cards.

Nicky Mondellini:

Oh, that’s amazing. And will you be going to Mexico again? Because you’re always so well received in Mexico City, I can attest to that.

Simon Painter:

I really hope so. I mean, it’s such an amazing market. We’ve had a huge amount of response, partially to do with OCESA being amazing hosts when we come. But yeah, it’s a great audience. I think Mexico City, I call it the most underrated city in the world. I just think that every American should go and visit Mexico City, because I think it’s one of those things that Americans don’t realize just what an amazing city they have at their doorstep. You know, it’s so close and it’s so vibrant and cultural, and there’s so many incredible things to see. So it’s one of our favorite places to come.

Nicky Mondellini:

Oh, for sure. Yes. Yes, it does have a very, very wonderful cultural variety and a lot to offer. So yeah. I mean, I know people always love to see The Illusionists when you go there. But let’s now talk about something else that… When people go to your shows, of course, apart from having that amazing experience of seeing unbelievable things happen, what do you want people to take away from the shows or that they have an impression of?

Simon Painter:

Look, the way I produce shows is that they’re entertainment pieces. So that the whole reality of these things are that they are entertainment first. So therefore I don’t produce things that are really meant to be telling a story or changing people’s lives. I produce shows for people to come and have a good night out. That’s what I enjoy doing. So whether it be magic or circus or music or whatever we are doing, it is basically a spectacle of entertainment. That’s what it is. You’re there to see the craziest humans do the craziest things. You should laugh, you should be amazed, you should cry, you should have all those kind of emotions, but for me, it’s entertainment first. So it’s about putting amazing entertainers on stage.

Nicky Mondellini:

Definitely. And it’s also about having the opportunity to have all of those emotions at once, because it’s thrilling to see the dangerous acts and you have very funny things happening as well with magicians, with certain acts that you have, so it’s all of very big emotions that come out there, so it’s just exhilarating to witness one of these shows and be there, and if you get the chance to be on stage and participate with one of the magicians, it’s even a lot more fun, it’s an added level of fun and just joy to be there. Definitely. Anyway, now let’s talk about another show that you’re producing, and I don’t know if you can talk about it now, but something that is themed with Game of Thrones, is that something in the making?

Simon :

It is in the making. Yeah, I can’t say too much about it, but I mean, it was in the press, so we can say a little bit, but myself and my partners are producing a live version of Game of Thrones, it’s a prequel and it’s really early in development, so there’s not an awful lot to say about it, but we are working right now with an amazing director and writer in London, based on material from George. And yeah, it’s on the cards and hopefully it will happen at some point in the next couple of years or so.

Nicky Mondellini:

Oh my goodness. And well, of course, everyone will be hoping to see flying dragons and the whole thing there if possible, but I’m sure you’ll come up with amazing things like those two amazing elephants that are in Circus 1903, it’s just, wow, very impressive.

Simon :

It’s a super exciting world. And he’s an amazing writer and world builder, so we’re super excited about where that goes.

Nicky Mondellini:

Oh yes. Well, hopefully we can have you on again for another interview when everything is ready to go, so you can tell us more about that.

Simon :

Definitely.

Nicky Mondellini:

Good. So anyway, of course you’ve mentioned [Kirsty], your wife and that she’s an amazing dancer and choreographer and has been a part of the show, and would you want your kids to also follow in your footsteps or be part of the business in some way?

Simon :

Maybe. I mean, it’s definitely pretty volatile. So I mean, I always think about where we live right now and all the people that live around us and myself and Kirsty don’t have a degree to rub together, we have no qualifications whatsoever, we both left school and I was a violin player, she was a dancer. So, I mean, it’s not much of a backup plan, is it? So I think, as parents, you probably want a bit more stability, but we’ve both been really lucky following the things that we really love, and I love making shows, she loves dancing and creating shows, and so it’s been incredible and my kids are really musical, they’re really into singing and playing the violin and playing piano and playing drums, they’re very musical.

Simon :

I mean, I think, I had a real passion for it, and so did Kirsty. So she grew up wanting to dance, she said when she was eight, she used to go and practice dancing in her bedroom for hours on end, and I was the same, I was in hundreds of bands and orchestras and I was always playing music and always organizing the events and doing the bits that were behind the scenes and trying to sell tickets and do all that bit. So it was always the thing that I love doing. So I think if they love doing it, then yeah, I’d definitely encourage them to do it, if they don’t love doing it, then it’s not for them, but bit early to tell.

Nicky Mondellini:

Yeah. Yes. But I don’t know. I can see it, knowing your beautiful kids. Yes. I can definitely see how they might be going into it, and of course, it’s so alluring and so wonderful to be in that world and watching all these amazing acts, how can you not be, or not want to be part of it? It’s just amazing. So watch out.

Simon :

Definitely. Yeah.

Nicky Mondellini:

I think that, yes. Simon, what can you recommend, or just a bit of advice that you can give to young producers who maybe are a little bit afraid of taking that big step in heading in the right direction of a goal that they have, but that they might just not know exactly how to go about it?

Simon :

Well, look, I think with show business, it applies to anything, whether you want to be a dancer or you want to be a producer or a director, there’s two sides to it, you have to be good creatively and you have to make sure that you are making money, and that’s basically the balance, it’s the show and the business, there’s literally two sides to the coin. And whether you are a dancer, and the real goal is, how do I make someone money? That’s got to be forefront of it, how can I add value to something that’s going to make me valuable? And as someone wanting to be a producer, I think that, first and foremost, it’s really easy to say, “follow your dreams and make something creatively”, but I always think that the first thing to do is try and find a way of turning your dream into some kind of financial reality, try and find a way that it pays for itself.

Simon :

Don’t be betting the whole house on the next thing, you want to have as many people invested in you as possible. And so try and make it work financially, whatever it may be, whether you find an investor, or a partner, or a theater or a collaborator, or whether you’re just making it so cheaply that it’s not a big risk, and people talk about risk taking and they say, “oh, you’ve taken so many risks”, and we have taken loads of risks, but the reality of it is, is that, we did it in a way that always made sure that we were likely to succeed financially, and I think so many things I see from young people, they’re so unlikely to succeed, they never get past a very early point, you’ve got to try and get that business side of it working and it should work on the back of a napkin.

Simon :

It should make sense. Nothing is too good to be true. It should be like, “okay, this is a great idea, if it sells 97% of the tickets we’re going to break even” it should be like, “okay, so if it sells 50% of the tickets, in a small room, we should make some money from it.” So I think being financially realistic is actually not talked about a lot and it’s actually super important, just having a goal that is actually likely to succeed and not betting the farm on some wild idea, and it might be an amazing idea, but some ideas need a lot of money, a lot of time, go for ones that are actually likely to get your foot on the ladder and get some success underneath you.

Nicky Mondellini:

Yeah, for sure. I mean, definitely, creative entrepreneurs, it does happen a lot. I mean, you’re right, I’ve seen it as well with many people that do have great ideas, but I think some of the things that you said, like your boss early on said, “create all the marketing first”, that is one of the things that creative minds or creative people don’t really think about that much, they think, “okay, now we’ve done the whole production, now we have the whole concept and everything. Yeah, we’ll just do a little bit of marketing and that’ll be it”, but sometimes it’s, no, I mean, it has to be just as much of an effort put into that as it is into designing and producing and doing the whole thing.

Simon :

Well, I’d say it’s even more important. So, ultimately, I had this discussion a lot with people, you can create amazing art that no one sees, or you can create art that people do see, and there’s time in your life, especially when you’re young to do the bit like the passion project, that’s going to be the thing that you really don’t care if it makes money or not, you can do that when you’ve got a bit of stability behind you, but the biggest thing is that, producing is a really tough game and you make a lot of mistakes along the way, we probably produced a hundred shows over the last 20 years, because every version of The Illusionist is basically a different show, we’ve had dozens of circuses, all sorts of offshoots of things and every single show you get a little bit better at doing it.

Simon :

And so the experience really matters, the experience of putting these shows on, selling tickets, the PR, the marketing, the rehearsals, the budget, everything to do with the show. So you’ve got to get a few under your belt, you’re not going to have the 50 million dollar idea on your first one, I don’t know anybody that produced, Phantom of the Opera on their first go, maybe it’s happened, but normally it happens because someone’s done a ton of stuff before it, and then they were in the right place, at the right time to capitalize on the one they were successful on, and so you’ve got to get some wins on the sheet and so just doing it is important, and so when I go back to it being financially successful, that matters, like selling, I wish it didn’t, but basically, having things that make other people money, shows that make money are important, even if it just breaks even, or makes a little bit of money.

Simon :

What it can’t be is a huge financial disaster, because no one’s ever going to work with you again, it has to be financially responsible. And so you’ve got to just start off and get the wins and try a lot of different things, I always think that it’s a game, I equate it to baseball. So it’s about hitting singles and doubles and then occasionally hitting a home run, and you never really know when the home run is coming, but for God’s sake, don’t strike out.

Simon :

You’re knocking [inaudible], you’re trying an idea, you’re not losing too much money, you’re trying another idea, maybe you win a bit, then you lose a bit, then you win a bit and none of is retirement money, but they’re all experienced, then just when you’re not least expecting it, you whack one out the park and it makes a ton of money and the show’s amazing, and then it’s creatively successful and it does take money to make shows creatively successful, having rehearsals and all the things that go along with it. So, it’s quite important that people put that first, as much as that is not what people want to hear, it’s the important bit

Nicky Mondellini:

Because it does take work, it takes a lot of work to do that and a lot of planning and knowing how to find the right people to believe in you, in your project and your dream and invest into it.

Simon :

Completely.

Nicky Mondellini:

Yeah. And let’s talk about now how you find all the magicians, the performers and everyone, because of course, you do a lot of traveling, not only to put on the shows, but also you’re scouting more people to bring into the shows. So, how do you find all of these amazing performers?

Simon :

Well, with the magicians, they kind of find us to be honest, because there’s not that many of them. So if you look at the number of world class magicians that are out there that are really good on stage, and I’m not talking about people that are great at sleight of hand, that can come into a restaurant and dazzle you, there’s lots of those, but people who can actually work on stage at an audience of a thousand people and above, there’s not that many, there’s maybe, my guess in the entire world, under 50. So it’s a pretty small talent pool. Maybe there’s a few more that we don’t know about. So you pretty much know where they are and what they do, and there are a few up and coming ones that slip through the cracks.

Simon :

So we pretty much know them, we are always shocked when we see one we don’t know. So, occasionally there is one, but we don’t know, or there’s someone who’s on a smaller level and they break out, because they’ve done something viral or maybe they’ve been on America’s Got Talent, occasionally you find one, but it’s a very small talent show. So for magic, it’s pretty easy, for circus, it’s a much wider pool. So, I used to be the guy that went and did it, I flew to China and went village to village, looking for people that could… We went from school to school, they had acrobatic schools and acrobats come from schools, they come from gyms, they come from sports teams, they come from circus families, so they come from a pretty wide array of people, but we are constantly searching for what that next thing is, that’s how that works.

Nicky Mondellini:

Wow. And then once you have all of the performers, how do you come up with a concept to sort of, because I heard you say in an interview that you have all of these amazing acts, but that you have to have a theme that unites all of them under one path, like one theme, how do you come up with that?

Simon :

The theme comes first. So, I’m producing a new show in Vegas right now, which I can’t tell you exactly what it is, but basically the theme comes first and then you find the performers to fit into that theme. So we produce things, then we come up with an idea, we think it’s going to make a load of money, we make the marketing, we make the posters, we create the assets around the show very early on, and we really rigorously test those, and then, after we’ve tested it and we’ve got it very far, and we’re pretty confident that the show is going to be something that people want to do, we then cast the show. So we do it in reverse.

Nicky Mondellini:

Got it.

Simon :

So we don’t really start with the acts, we end with the acts.

Nicky Mondellini:

Yeah, of course. Yeah. That seems a much more logical way to go around it for sure. Simon, is there anything else that you’d want to talk about or another bit of advice for people that definitely want to go into production, or directing?

Simon :

Yeah. I mean, look, I think, always it’s, follow your dreams. I actually don’t think it’s about following your dreams, I just think it’s about doing it. I think that, I don’t know anybody that’s successful that hasn’t worked 18 hour days, I just don’t know anyone, and so, it’s great to dream, but it’s better to do, and so just being really active and really hungry is the way to do it and not expecting the outcomes to be great all the time, but just doing it.

Simon :

The people that we like working with are the ones that have done a lot of stuff, they’ve just done so many shows and then once that’s happened, you can really lean on them, that’s my advice. Unfortunately, there’s not a shortcut, you just got to work bloody hard, but I’m sure that’s the same in a lot of industries, but I’d say even more so in entertainment, because it’s not like you can point to a degree, or a bit of paper, or diploma and say, “look, I’ve achieved this” it’s like the only thing people care about is the last thing that you did. Was it successful? Did it make money? Did people like it?

Nicky Mondellini:

Yes.

Simon :

That is unfortunately the business we’re in.

Nicky Mondellini:

Yes. We’re only as famous as our last production, as our last show or TV or movie thing. Yeah, for sure. So we have to keep improving and just practicing and improving ourselves and seeing how else we can grow, and that’s of course, true of everything in show business, but you have certainly proved that, with all the shows, and they’re amazing. How can people find out? Of course, you do great marketing, so I’m sure people already know where they are, I mean, you’re in the biggest venues in every city, but now, after the pandemic, I’m sure that things have changed a little bit, and I don’t know if you are, again, many theaters, they have every other row canceled out, like at the movie house, every two seats, there’s two in the middle that they don’t sell for social distancing. So, how are those things working out for you now?

Simon :

Well, in Vegas it’s a hundred percent capacity.

Nicky Mondellini:

Oh it is already.

Simon :

It’s mask, but a hundred percent capacity. Look, I just don’t think, it’s very tough, until the world is normal again, live entertainment is the last thing. You’ll get on a flight, but I’m not sure you go to a theater. So we’re obviously hoping this thing is over sooner rather than later, but people are coming out and seeing shows, which is great. Performers are back on stage, which is the biggest thing, because it’s just been so tough for everybody.

Nicky Mondellini:

Yeah.

Simon :

So look, I mean, we’re optimistic, but it has to go away. I mean, I keep on saying to people like, it’s not going to be completely normal until people like my mom are comfortable going to the theater, and even people that have vaccinated, some of them are not comfortable going to the theater, and I understand it, it’s tough, but I think we’re almost at the point now with these vaccines and things that, your chances of a bad outcome are pretty low. So, it’s getting to the point now that it’s a risk worth taking, so hopefully you’ll be there soon in Mexico City and we can be back performing.

Nicky Mondellini:

Yes, absolutely. Or you’ll come to Houston again and I’ll be happy to see you [crosstalk]

Simon :

Amazing.

Nicky Mondellini:

Yes. Wonderful. Simon, well, thank you again so much for giving me some of your time and I’m sure you have lots of other rehearsals and things to get to, but hopefully you’ll have a little rest over the weekend. Anyway, people will follow you on Instagram or Twitter, or go to the website to find out about [inaudible]

Simon :

Yeah. I actually have no social media myself. So I do no publicity for my own things, which is a decision I took 20 years ago. I don’t even know how Instagram works, but my company is very good at it. So certainly under Cirque du Soleil, there’s a lot of information about where our shows are going next. So yes, there’s not much on the website yet because for our stuff, because although I have, America’s Got Talent, the live show opening in Vegas next week, which is quite exciting.

Nicky Mondellini:

Oh, wonderful.

Simon :

And then in spring we have another new show, hopefully opening in Las Vegas and then I’ve got Circus 1903 in London, this Christmas, and then next year, hopefully, will be busy again and we’ll be back on the road.

Nicky Mondellini:

Wonderful. Well, that all sounds amazing. And as always, you keep working at it, you keep creating all of these shows and just making them greater. So best of luck with all of the productions, and we’ll be definitely following closely to see which one we can catch, wherever we are, since you’re going a lot all over the world, but congratulations on all the success and I wish you definitely all the best with all of it, so thank you again.

Simon :

Thanks so much.