YouTube Account CirqueDuSoleilGuru Suspended

 

Obituary Note for YouTube’s “CirqueDuSoleilGuru” Born: July 2008, Died: December 18, 2009 200+ Videos, Total video views: 3,244,071, Total ratings 5,240, Total comments posted to videos by users: 3,152, Almost 2,000 subscribers and hundreds of friends. CirqueDuSoleilGuru (aka YouTube.com/CirqueDuSoleilGuru) was a well respected and loved member of the YouTube community, not only because of the valuable content that he provided, but also because of his support and engagement beyond YouTube and the videos in the cause to support and promote the works of Cirque du Soleil. But the content was one important factor also. The average rating of all the videos uploaded to the account was a whopping “4.46” out of “5”. The sudden death was not only tragic, but also unexpected.  What’s now lost also with the death of CirqueDuSoleilGuru, represents hundreds upon hundreds of hours of work by me and other YouTube community members. All of which was destroyed and killed in cold blooded murder because of corporate greed, ignorance and disrespect of the average people, like me and you.

The YouTube Publisher Account (Type: Guru) “CirqueDuSoleilGuru” was suspended on December 18, 2009 by Google without notice or stating any reasons for taking such dramatic actions.

Two users and former subscribers to my channel already contacted me via other communication channels, like another YouTube account of mine or via private email and asked me what happened and how unhappy they are about this happening.

I honestly don't know what happened and why they suspended my YouTube account. I can only make wild speculations, but that is beyond the point.

What makes me mad is the fact that the account was in good standing, no warnings, had almost 2000 subscribers, 3.2 Mio video views, over 3,000 video comments and close to 300 videos and gets suspended without giving any reason or anything. No email, nothing. Support generally does ignore things like that. I know that from past experience, which made me a lot more careful, without success obviously.

It could be something that happened recently or something that happened months or longer ago. You simply don't know. Considering the status and activity (content) of the account, you would expect that they would at least tell you what the problem is that you get at least a chance to do something about it. Nope, hundreds of hours of my time and time of YouTube's users who commented on my videos gone. Not even worth a single email to them to let me know. The last email that I got was about a new subscriber to the channel.

The last Email that I sent to YouTube just a few days before my account was suspended was an alert to make them aware of a scam that was abusing their system to trick users into installing some malware on their computers. This was happening on December 14, 2009. I also blogged about that at my personal blog. Well, you can  see how grateful they are and how much they appreciate their users and how much they value the time that their users spend on producing and publishing videos on their web site.

Moving Forward

I have 3 other YouTube accounts, one has even more videos that my Cirque du Soleil channel had (but much less viewers and subscribers). I don't know if I will start a new Cirque related channel on YouTube. The videos are still up on my File-share for download. Many are also available on other Video sharing sites. I have not yet decided what to do. I am also thinking about not to do much with video sharing sites directly anymore, but host the videos myself on Amazon S3 and put them on a new web site that I would have to create for this stuff. Video sharing sites would then only be used to promote that new site (teasers etc.) and not depend on them for the actual content distribution that much anymore.

It would take a lot of time and eventually money as well. Things I don't have plenty of at the moment. To take the time, I would need to monetize it early on to cover my expenses and pay at least for some of my time. I know quite a bit about this kind of stuff and thus know that it is not so easy in this particular niche.

Regardless of this blog post, I have little hope that it will be resolved in a positive way, because YouTube/Google simply gives a crap about you. The traditional media outlet dinosaurs care even less about anything but how they can milk the consumer cow for hard cash as much as possible. With them is any discussion about the value of content and alternative options to come to terms with them a waste of time for everybody involved. For them is content, media and art nothing more (or less) than a bag of wheat, a commodity with a price label attached to it.

Appealing to their responsibilities in society falls on dumb ears, because they are not in business to do anything good for society, but to maximize profits for their share holders and for themselves.

I just watched yesterday a video about the history of YouTube (on YouTube) and had to laugh when they talked about the value and importance of "community" and the users who are active in it. Well, the video was not created by YouTube themselves, but some students. They obviously did not know better.

The thing that pisses me off the most is the fact that I finished 10 or so videos, branded with "YouTube's CirqueDuSoleilGuru" that I wanted to upload when I learned that my account was suspended. A "nice" Christmas present.

You could try to help and contact YouTube to ask them about my account as a caring and appreciative user, who liked the content of my channel. I have no idea, if that might trigger that they take a second look at it, but it is not hard to do, does not take too much of your time and who knows, might works. You are now the second user who contacted me because of that. Maybe others will start wondering too and could join in too. You don't have to do it of course, but I'd appreciate it really.

Doing What I Dared to Do

PS. I just used YouTube’s web form to request more information about the account suspension, which I also just found out about today, but have little hope to get anything back from there that would help in this situation, if I hear back anything from YouTube at all. So far YouTube/Google tends to follow the strategy of complete silence and ignorance when it is about unpleasant things they don’t want to cope with.

I did not want to speculate about why the account was suspended, but I found this post in Google Groups, which is interesting and says it all. There somebody stated it cold and clear that YouTube has the right to suspend any account at any time for any reason without any notice and that you are at their mercy from the moment when you created your YouTube account and agreed to their terms of services while doing so.

It also states that a typical reason for an account suspension is their “3-Strikes” rule, where a strike is ONE video where somebody complained about and it was removed without you fighting against it on the legal battlefront.

I had more than 3 movies that were removed from the account over the months and I stopped arguing with them in those cases, if there could be the possibility that the fair-use clause does apply. I did not involve a lawyer, heck no. I did all this stuff in my spare time as a hobby and to support Cirque du Soleil and the artists and not for profit. In some cases YouTube simply slammed additional ads over the video and shared the revenue from those ads with the alleged owner (or partial owner) of the content.

I also got contacted by companies and individuals about the content of some videos. A few even were unhappy at first, but then realized that what I was doing was not to do them any bad, but the exact opposite. Anger tended to turn into appreciation and acknowledgement of the work that I had done for them without them asking or compensating me.

Also Cirque officials contacted me through YouTube to send me information etc. in the hope that I would help them with the voluntary promotion of their stuff, if I liked it. This said, I doubt that Cirque du Soleil had any hand in this issue. You might would think otherwise, considering that the vast majority of the content at my CIrqueDuSoleilGuru channel was about or from Cirque du Soleil itself.

It’s all such a pain and waste.

Regards,

Carsten aka Roy/SAC aka Ex-CirqueDuSoleilGuru

Imagine The Beatles in Love and 20 Years Under the Sun

Since it went so nice with my publication of the Inside La Nouba documentary, I thought that I continue and also publish some other non-available/out of print Cirque du Soleil documentaries.

Imagine – The Beatles in Love

This is the 50+ minutes long BBC documentary "Imagine, the Beatles in LOVE" about the creation of the Cirque du Soleil show "The Beatles - LOVE", which is performed at the Mirage hotel and casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.

It features commentary by the creators of the show, as well as the remaining Beatles members and the music producers Sir George Martin and his son Giles Martin. It also shows a lot of footage from the Cirque du Soleil show itself, acrobatics, rehearsals and more.

The documentary was broadcast on British television on December 27, 2006 and not officially released on DVD for purchase.

Check out the "Documentaries" or "Cirque on DVD" parts of my Cirque du Soleil primer article at http://www.roysac.com/cirque, which refers to a shop where you can purchase a bootleg copy of the documentary on DVD.

There you can also find the references to the great documentary about the show LOVE, which is actually available on DVD. It is called "All Together Now" and features over 2 hours of great and informative material about the show and the process of it's creation.

You can also download the entire documentary in .AVI video format (XVID/MP3, 624x368 pixels resolution) at http://www.mediafire.com/?w2dzbnznxgx (Beware! It's a 642 MB! file)

Watch the Individual Segments at YouTube.com

Note: There were some issues with the audio and video being out of sync. I re-uploaded all 6 parts of the documentary once more and it should be fine now. Please use the new links below (second bullet list). 

• Imagine The Beatles in Love - Part 1
• Imagine The Beatles in Love - Part 2
• Imagine The Beatles in Love - Part 3
• Imagine The Beatles in Love - Part 4
• Imagine The Beatles in Love - Part 5
• Imagine The Beatles in Love - Part 6

• Imagine The Beatles in Love - Part 1 fixed
• Imagine The Beatles in Love - Part 2 fixed
• Imagine The Beatles in Love - Part 3 fixed
• Imagine The Beatles in Love - Part 4 fixed
• Imagine The Beatles in Love - Part 5 fixed
• Imagine The Beatles in Love - Part 6 fixed

Cirque du Soleil 20 Years Under the Sun

This is the 58 minutes long BBC documentary "Cirque du Soleil - 20 Years Under the Sun" from 2005 that was created because of the 20th anniversary of Cirque du Soleil in the year before (2004). The documentary does not focus on any particular production of the Cirque, it's covering the whole spectrum that existed back then in 2004/2005.

If you are looking for a DVD version of this documentary, you won't have any luck, because it is not available for purchase. It never was. It was broadcast on BBC television and that was it.

There is a DVD related to the 20th anniversary celebration of Cirque du Soleil in 2004. The special show that they did in the city where their international headquarters is located, Montreal, Canada.

It is called "Soleil de Minuit" or in English "Midnight Sun". It is not a documentary. It's a special one-time only live performance in the streets of the city. Check out the "Special Performances" and "Cirque on DVD" parts of my Cirque du Soleil primer article series at http://www.roysac.com/cirque for more information and to find out where to buy the DVD online.

You can download the entire documentary video in .AVI format, 482 MB in size, 704x400 pixels resolution, codecs: XVID/MP3, at my MediaFire.com file share at: http://www.mediafire.com/?a0wykmtizc2

Watch the Individual Segments at YouTube.com

• Cirque du Soleil – 20 Years Under the Sun – Part 1
• Cirque du Soleil – 20 Years Under the Sun – Part 2
• Cirque du Soleil – 20 Years Under the Sun – Part 3
• Cirque du Soleil – 20 Years Under the Sun – Part 4
• Cirque du Soleil – 20 Years Under the Sun – Part 5
• Cirque du Soleil – 20 Years Under the Sun – Part 6

Enjoy!

Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC and CirqueDuSoleilGuru

Cirque du Soleil File Archive

This article is part of my Cirque du Soleil primer articles series.

I made over the time a huge amount of content related to Cirque du Soleil available for download at various places. To make things easier to find, I also store most of my stuff at my file sharing account at MediaFire.com.

The good thing about MediaFire.com is that you do not stupid delays or other hoops to jump through in order to download files, without creating an account (free or paid). Downloads start right away, the only thing that you get are some Ads and a pop-up, which is a bit annoying, but very little hassle in comparison what you get in return for it.

The files are sorted into various sub folders to make it easier to find the stuff that you are interested in. The files that I have available are primarily video footage of Cirque du Soleil shows, special events and other productions, as well as photos, images and a bunch of audio material as well.

No, you won’t find there the show DVDs or soundtrack CDs for download. Those are available for purchase, so please don’t be so cheap and buy those releases instead of trying to download an illegal copy of it. They don’t cost very much.

If you are not sure, if you should buy a DVD or Soundtrack, then I might be able to help you, because the material that I do have available provides a good glimpse of what to expect from the recording products and of course the live shows itself.

The File Archive Folder Structure

A good place to start is the main root directory for my Cirque du Soleil files at MediaFire.com:

Cirque du Soleil File Share Root Folder

Beneath that you will find a number of sub directories as follow:

• Cirque General Videos
  Here you can find videos that are about Cirque du Soleil in general, including Ads that promote merchandise of multiple shows. This folder has two additional sub-folders, where you can find files to the “Then and Now Video Series” and also “Cirque du Soleil Logos” (Videos for credits and intros etc.)
  
  
• Cirque Images Packs
  This folder contains collections of images and photographs packed as RAR archives; sorted/grouped by shows and special purposes, like wall papers, banners and product images.

  All in all, well over 1.5 Gigabytes of photos and images, packed with WinRAR into over 25 separate archives, by shows and individual subject. Some archives are small and only a few megabytes, but the larger ones are well beyond 100 Megabytes in size.

• Cirque Music Audios
  Live snippets and previously unreleased tracks (missing on official soundtrack CDs) from various Cirque du Soleil productions in MP3 format.

  This folder has also over a dozen sub folders, typically for each of the shows where there is audio material available for download.

• Cirque Shows Videos
  Videos related to the individual touring and resident shows of Cirque du Soleil around the globe.
  This folder has a bunch of sub folders for each individual show, such as:
  
  
  
• Past Shows  (such as Nouvelle Experience, Le Grand Tour, La Magie Continue etc.)
• "O"
• Alegría
• Banana Shpeel aka Vaudeville
• Believe (Criss Angel)
• Corteo
• Delirium
• Dralion
• Elvis
• KA
• Kooza
• La Nouba
• Love (The Beatles)
• Mystere
• Ovo
• Quidam
• Saltimbanco
• Varekai
• Wintuk
• Zaia
• Zed
• Zumanity
  

• Cirque Specials Videos
  Videos of special events or performances by Cirque du Soleil. Note: Specials that only involve 1 show can be found in their respective show folders instead.

  There are two additional sub folders:
  
  

  • About Cirque, which has videos ABOUT and not OF Cirque du Soleil, like news reports and also parodies etc. 
  • Carsten - Cirque du Soleil - This sub folder contains all the videos, where you can see and hear me talking about various subjects related to Cirque du Soleil, including product reviews etc.
    
    
• Cirque TV Productions Videos
  Videos of Cirque du Soleil productions for Television and Movie Theaters, like IMAX. Videos of productions related to a specific Cirque show can be found in the respective show folder instead. There are two sub folders in this directory:
  
  
  • Journey of Man
  • Solstrom
    
    
  Note: The Alegría "The Movie" videos are located at the folder about the Alegría show.
  
  
• Acrobatics General (Non-Cirque)
  Non-Cirque du Soleil acrobatics videos that I created (edited)

 

Notes to the Videos/Video Format (Encoding/Codecs)

• Most videos are encoded using the free XVID video codec for the video data and standard Mpeg-1 Layer 3 (MP3) for the audio. The XVID codec does not come with Windows by default and must be installed separately. You can download the necessary software at this web site, for free. There is also the version for Mac OS X for all the Macintosh users out there. Alternative download locations and additional versions like for SuSE Linux or Debian at Xvid.org or Koepi.info.
• Some videos are also in Windows Media Video format (.WMV), which is supported automatically for all Windows 32/64 Bit versions like XP, Vista and Windows 7.
• Macintosh users need to download a free add-on for Apple’s QuickTime player in order to be able to play back those videos. You can download the software at this web site.

Supplemental Resources Related to Video/Audio

• General resources to video and video codecs can be found on the Internet, at communities like Doom9.net. For Windows users might be my Guide to Video and Audio for Microsoft Windows of interest.
• For YouTube fans: How to Download Videos from YouTube (a Guide)
• If you are interested in doing something with video yourself and would like to know which tools I am using for capturing video, converting and editing, check out my post “Video Editing, Ripping, Converting and Capture Tools for the PC”

 

Cirque du Soleil Articles in this Series

• Main Cirque du Soleil Primer Article
• Cirque du Soleil - Historic Time-Line 1984 to Present
• The Cirque du Soleil Story - Odyssea - The dreamer's Odyssey
• Cirque du Soleil Touring Shows (Complete List)
• Cirque du Soleil Resident Shows (Complete List)
• Cirque du Soleil Arena Shows (Complete List)
• Cirque du Soleil Special Events & Performances
• Cirque du Soleil Releases for TV and IMAX
• Cirque du Soleil Documentaries (Complete List)
• Cirque du Soleil DVD Releases (Complete List)
• Cirque du Soleil Music Releases (Complete List)
• Cirque du Soleil File Archive (Videos, Audio and Images)

Happy downloading! I hope that you will enjoy the content that I made available for you.

Cheers!

Carsten aka your YouTube’s CirqueDuSoleilGuru

This article is part of my Cirque du Soleil primer articles series.

New Cirque du Soleil Show Ovo

The name for the new Cirque du Soleil touring show that will premiere on April 23, 2009 in Montreal, Canada was unveiled. The name is: “OVO”.

The theme of the show are insects. Yes, you read this right, insects. This also explains the name choice, because here is what Cirque du Soleil themselves stated about it:

The name OVO means "egg" in Portuguese. This timeless symbol of the life cycle and birth of numerous insects represents the underlying thread of the show. Graphically, OVO hides an insect in its name: The two letter "Os" represent the eyes while the letter "V" forms the nose.

The Cirque’s web site was also updated (it used to show simply “Cirque 2009”, which was the working title of the show). There are not much video images of the show available. The official trailer for the show is a just 16 seconds in length with less than half of that being images from the show itself.

Backup Link to Video on YouTube.com
Download this video in AVI format from my Mediafire.com account.

There are a few more photographs though, which I made available on my Flickr.com account. I created a new set for the “Ovo” show under my existing Cirque du Soleil photo collection.

This is Cirque’s 25th show production in 25 years. Yes, 2009 also marks the 25th anniversary of the Cirque. Congratulations. They were busy over the past few years. More than half of their 25 shows were created within the past 10 years. Last year 3 shows were launched in a single year in 3 different countries on 2 continents.

What is interesting about OVO is the fact that almost every important person among the creators of the show didn’t play a major role in the creation of any of the previous Cirque productions. Except from the usual mention of Guy among the creators of every Cirque du Soleil show, Jonathan Deans who did the Sound Design for Ovo, is the only person who worked on other shows. Jonathan did the sound design for the Cirque du Soleil touring shows Saltimbanco and Kooza and helped with the lighting design for Corteo.

Deborah Colker wrote and directed the new show and also did the choreography. Director of Creation is Chantal Tremblay, who is not exactly a newbie to Cirque du Soleil. She was Associate Producer for the resident show “The Beatles LOVE” at the Mirage hotel and casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. She actually started out as a dancer in Cirque, then became an assistant to choreographer Debra Brown, then Artistic Coordinator and then Artistic Director.

The composer of the music for the show is Berna Ceppas. The music by the early Cirque shows was composed René Dupéré, Benoît Jutras and then later also by Violaine Corradi. That changed over the past years and many new composers were introduced to the Cirque family, including: Jean-François Côté (Kooza), Philippe Leduc (Corteo), Simon Carpentier (Zumanity), Éric Serra (Believe). René Dupéré was busy with the music for Zed and Violaine Corradi for the show Zaia. I don’t know what happened to to Benoît Jutras. Maybe he is busy with one of the other Cirque projects that are currently in production. I am not familiar with Berna Ceppas and his music. I know that he is from Brazil and learned that he has a MySpace page where you can listen to some of his earlier work to get an idea about how the music for Ovo might sound like. The short trailer was unfortunately not long enough to get it from there.

Additional show credits: Set Design and Props: Gringo Cardia, Costume Design: Liz Vandal, Lighting Design: Éric Champoux, Make up: Julie Bégin, Rigging: Fred Gérard, Acrobatics Act Designer: Philippe Aubertin, Artistic Guides: Gilles Ste-Croix & Guy Laliberté.

Cirque du Soleil also launched a Facebook page for Ovo.

Another YouTube user from Germany with I am in touch will be in Montreal for the premiere. I won’t be able to make it myself, but he promised me to let me know about his impressions from the show.

Like the previous touring shows of Cirque du Soleil, Ovo will start its multiple years long journey across Canada, the United States and then the rest of the world, including Europe, Asia, Australia and South America.

I hope to have some new video material from the show available soon to post it on my YouTube channel and share it with you. I have already over 350 videos about Cirque du Soleil and related subjects up online. You might want to check it out. Also do not forget my Cirque du Soleil Primer article for facts and information about your favorite Circus, the Cirque du Soleil.

Cirque du Soleil in Lecce, Italy - KA Show Videos

Cirque du Soleil gave a special acrobatic performance on December 5, 2008 during the Notte Bianca street festival in Lecce, Italy that consisted of multiple parts, involving dozens of artists.

Acts like Russian Bars, Spanish Web and other Aerial performances, Cyr Wheel, Wheel of Death and general dancers, singers and musicians as well as light projection and other special effects.

My 28 minutes video of these performances is based on the footage of several home made videos that I found on the web. The visual quality differs from good to poor, but I hope that I was able to capture the essence of the show. I replaced the audio almost entirely, but tried to be true to the actual music as good as possible. The original videos are still out there, if you want to see the true live recordings of the event.

Here is the 28 minutes video that I created about this special performance by Cirque du Soleil in Lecce, Italy.

 Backup Link to Video on Google Video

Cirque du Soleil - KA - Video Recording of the Entire Show

I was talking about the issue that non of the Vegas Cirque du Soleil shows are available on DVD and that video footage will leak out over time to cover the whole show, like in the case of Cirque du Soleil's epic show KA, which is performed live at the MGM Grand hotel and casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The raw videos of the show are available via torrent downloads, such as here (German Intro Narration, XVID, .AVI) and also here (French Intro Narration, MPEG-2 Format).

So I decided to lean myself a bit out of the window and sliced the video up into 9 pieces and put it up on my YouTube channel for Cirque du Soleil related videos of mine. Here is the link to part one. To find the remaining 8 videos, check out the play list that I created for this video series.

The Intro narration is in German (that's the version that I used for YouTube) and translates to:

On the way to a pageant to their honor, the imperial twins put their skills in the traditional art of sword fighting to the test. They have no idea on that day, about the real threats that lay ahead of them. About the great thunder that will soon put an end to the innocent lives that they were used to. About destruction and devastation that will drive an entire nation into exile and about the chaos of war that will soon separate the brave brother from his beloved sister. This is the story about the journey to self discovery of a young man and a young woman through their experiences with love, conflicts and the duality of KA, the fire that has the power to combine or to separate and the power to destroy or to enlighten.

Fast Facts about KA

• Length of the show: about 90 minutes
• Venue: The "KA Theatre" at the MGM Grand hotel & casino in Las Vegas, NV
• Premiere(s): 26.November 2004/03.February 2005, in Las Vegas, Nevada
• Official Show Homepage on the Web: http://www.cirquedusoleil.com/KA
• People: 80 artists from around the world perform the show twice per day, 5 days per week and about 50 weeks per year
• Show times: Tuesdays to Saturdays, one at 7:00 pm and a second show at 9:30 pm local time, No show performances on Mondays and Sundays
• Over 100 crew members are working for the show in 8 or more technical and artist support departments, including wardrobe, make-up and wig personal.
• The music is played live, by human-beings, every time, only about 2 minutes of pre-recorded audio is used throughout the whole performance
• The total number of cast and crew for the show is about 266 people
• The production cost for KA were higher than the combined cost of all Broadway productions that were released in the same year as KA
• The custom build venue for the show inside the MGM has 1,951 seats
• Every seat is equipped with its own loud speakers for optimal sound experience
• The main stage of KA is called a "Gantry" made of 2 decks, one that can slide forward and backward and the other one which can be rotated and moved 360 degrees.
• The main deck is 25x50 feet (8x16 meters) in diameter, weighs 300,000 lbs, which is more than a fully booked, loaded and gassed-up average-size jet airliner
• If fully erected to its maximum height, artists perform their act 100 ft above the ground
• Ticket prices for the show range from about $75 to $165 per seat and are available at the MGM box offices at MGM properties, via toll free phone # at (800) 929-1111 and on the web at http://mgm-cds.admission.com/ or http://www.cirquedusolei.com/CirqueDuSoleil/en/showtickets/ka/tickets/

The Creators of the Show KA

• Show Director: Robert LePage
• Director of Creation: Guy Caron
• Music Composer: Rene Dupere
• Set Designer: Mark Fisher
• Costumes Designer: Marie-Chantale Vaillancourt
• Props Designer: Patricia Ruel
• Lighting Director: Luc Lafortune
• Sound Designer: Jonathan Deans
• Trainer for Aerial Performances: Andre Simard
• Choreographer: Jacques Heim
• Puppets Creation & Choreography: Michael Curry

For more Cirque du Soleil visit http://www.roysac.com/cirque

Regardless of the video, you should go and see it live, if you get to Vegas, because no video can substitute the live theatre experience. However, I do hope that this incident will cause MGM and Cirque du Soleil to rethink their policy about DVD releases of Vegas Cirque du Soleil shows and release those shows on DVD for people to buy legally. Not everybody can make it to Vegas and/or afford the ticket price to see the shows live. And also people like me, who saw the shows already, several of them even more than once, would like to have the DVD and watch it to refresh some of the good memories from the live experience.

Note: Cirque du Soleil had some of the 9 KA videos taken down by YouTube, so the play list is not complete anymore. However, the 9 segments can still be downloaded in AVI format from my file share at Mediafire.com

Part 1: http://www.mediafire.com/?znt5qzlwtdz
Part 2: http://www.mediafire.com/?wynyauglmzu
Part 3: http://www.mediafire.com/?jmomynjfzdk
Part 4: http://www.mediafire.com/?nzynximlmzt
Part 5: http://www.mediafire.com/?ymqyygvzy0t
Part 6: http://www.mediafire.com/?zdmzyynwymy
Part 7: http://www.mediafire.com/?mzjnjybytex
Part 8: http://www.mediafire.com/?molzthhyozw
Part 9: http://www.mediafire.com/?ojmlzummzyq

Enjoy and Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC

Where is the Delirium DVD by Cirque du Soleil?

The Cirque du Soleil show Delirium, which was called a "music concert" rather than a traditional Cirque du Soleil show, was the first experiment by Cirque to transport the experience of a Cirque show from the Big Top into the arena environment to be able to reach a greater audience.

This experiment was obviously successful, because they converted their oldest touring show Saltimbanco to become an "Arena Show". Saltimbanco Arena re-launched in the year 2007.

Delirium was only running between 2006 and 2008, 2 years.
I don't know why they stopped touring with it in 2008, but that is also not the reason why I am writing this blog post.
I watched Delirium in 2006 here in Fresno, California, the first time that a Cirque du Soleil production made it here. It was a good show, different, yes, but different does not mean bad.

The show was obviously filmed by a professional film crew at one time during the shows run, because in summer 2008 Cirque announced something unusual. I cannot recall that Cirque ever did something like it in the past.

Delirium Shown in Movie Theaters

They announced the screening of Delirium in movie theaters. It was only shown at selected movie theatres and only for a few days. I missed that and thought that it will be running longer, like a movie release. But I was lucky, they announced "Delirium Encore", another screening of the show at local theaters. There were only three screenings, the main one on Wednesday, October 15 at 7:00 PM and then two more, each at midnight on the following weekend on Saturday, October 18 at 12:00 AM and on Sunday, October 19 at 12:00 AM.

I saw it was my family on the Wednesday. We were the only ones in the theater, except for one other group of 3 or 4 people. I recorded a little bit of the show with my Flip Camera and used the material for a 7:24 minutes long promotional video, but lost by accident the raw recording (40-45 minutes) that I made shortly after. I was not too much upset about it, because I expected the DVD to be released by Christmas anyway.

I posted a 28 minutes video with the complete hula hoops and hand-balancing act included two months earlier in August, after the announcement of the release of the show in theaters, all in the expectation that the DVD release is not far in the future anyway. Now it is March 2009, five months after Delirium Encore and still no DVD release of the show in sight, what's up with that?

Where is the DVD?

An user with the name "funplyr69" posted a comment about one week ago at the video of the Delirium Encore trailer at YouTube.com that he contacted Cirque du Soleil to inquiry about the release of Delirium on DVD and got the response that

"there was currently no plan for a release but that there could be in the future." (video with comment at YouTube)

WHAT? Why the heck would they do that?

He stated correctly that Cirque released in the past all of their shows on VHS and/or DVD, except for their resident shows in Las Vegas.

I also created a video where I talked about this issue.

Backup link to video on YouTube.com
Download the video in AVI format and 720x480 pixels resolution at MediaFire.com

Spin Off to Las Vegas Shows

In the case of the Las Vegas shows, I believe that the reason for not publishing a DVD is MGM who owns all the Las Vegas properties where Cirque du Soleil shows are running.

But that changed now too. I know about a pirate release of the recording of show KA at the MGM Grand hotel and casino. I am not talking about a shaky recording by somebody sitting in the audience with a cheap digital video camera, no, a quality recording, fully edited and almost perfect DVD quality. More about this recording can be found here.

The NFO file of that pirate release states:

All Cirque du Soleil shows became eventually available on DVD, even while they are still running and touring around the world. The only exception is the Las Vegas shows, which all happen to run at MGM properties only.

Cirque must have signed an exclusivity agreement with MGM, from how it looks like. Franco Dragone, the famous former Cirque du Soleil director, who directed many of CDS shows, including Alegria, Mystere and "O", split from Cirque to found his own company. Franco Dragone created a Cirque du Soleil like show called "Le Reve" for Steve Wynn's latest Las Vegas property, the "Wynn Las Vegas".

The exclusivity agreement must be limited to Las Vegas only, because Cirque created and launched a show in Asian new "Las Vegas", Macao, China last year, called "Zaia" and that show runs at the Venetian Macao, which is owned by Sands Corp. and not MGM, who also operates casino and entertainment properties in Macao as well.

I am certain that the reason why no DVD release exists for any of the currently SIX and later this year SEVEN show productions is MGM and their old fashioned and paranoid management.

The oldest show launched almost 15 years ago and stills no DVD release of it in sight. A large amount of segments became public naturally through promotional ads, documentaries, news reports and other media releases, but never an entire show, with all consecutive pieces in place and consistent format of video and audio.

This is a first now. Cirque du Soleil shows (Circus a la carte) is a live experience that no canned version will ever be able to replace. For this reason I am convinced that this "pirate" release of the show will not hurt Cirque nor MGM ticket sales for the show in the years to come.

I dare to say that the opposite will be the case. The recording will only function as better advertisement for the show than anything that is currently out there already.

They probably will lose on DVD sales, but no, wait, they won't, because they do not sell any recording of the show on DVD, except for a behind the scenes/making of documentary, which might won't sell as good now anymore, since it is also part of this release as well.

If MGM does not like to miss out on revenue and profits, then they have to release their own official DVD version of the show.

People will eventually find this release, because nothing else like it exists at the moment... If the choice that people have includes only downloading a pirated show recording or no show at all, many will decide to choose the pirated version, with only little or no remorse, because MGM prevents people from being able to make the right choice and buy the legitimate version of it.

As long as we agree that the purpose of copyright laws is still to make sure that artists are being compensated for their work and creations and not as a tool to execute a real form of censorship, which I define as the prevention of access to content and/or information that are of interest for the general public and for the benefit of the society as a whole, if access would be possible), then nobody should ever feel the wrath of the Justicative arm of the government.

Most of the free world guarantees rights to its people to be able to access information without censorship via fundamental laws or constitutions, which means that nobody would have to fear, facing positional imprisonment or monetary penalties/fines for executing those rights in the real world.

List of Cirque du Soleil shows and the year the show was launched at MGM properties in Vegas:

- 1994 - Mystere at Treasure Island
- 1998 - "O" at the Bellagio
- 2003 - Zumanity at the New York, New York
- 2004 - KA at MGM Grand
- 2006 - The Beatles "Love" at the Mirage
- 2008 - Criss Angel's Believe at the Luxor

... And later this year in 2009 an "Elvis" themed show at the MGM City Center, which is currently under construction. MGM also owns the Mandalay Bay, Excalibur and Monte Carlo properties in Vegas (I hope that I didn't miss any).

and also

I hope that this release will function like a sticky note at the tip of a baseball bat that gets slammed into MGM Executive faces with the words:

"Release freaking DVDs of the Cirque shows at your properties in Vegas! Damn it!"

Amen to that. I hope that this will have the desired effect on MGM and/or Cirque du Soleil.

I also hope that Cirque du Soleil will change their opinion about the release of the Delirium DVD. I guess I will continue to gather up as much video material from the show I can get my hands on, to create another video of the show, which will be even longer than 28 minutes, like the last one.

Notes to Copyright Laws and Implications

Stuff is easier to find on the Internet than it used to be in the past. We will get the content... slowly and with pain staking work and not over night, but eventually we will get there. All this only, because content produces hide content that is in demand in their vaults rather then making the content available FOR PAY that people can easily get access to the content without jumping through hoops and doing it "illegally". Illegal is too hard of a word in this case, because the only crime committed is a violation of "Copyright Laws" that is supposed to protect the creators of content from getting robbed of their intellectual property and not to prevent access to that content in general.

If the content has implication on people and society, this withholding of content would be called "censorship".

If I want to pay you for your work that you have already done and you don't make it available, but it gets out to become accessible anyway, then accessing this content should not be against the law, due to the fact that It is impossible to obey to the law and compensate the artist for his work. If the content is made available for pay (in a way that follows common sense business rules and pricing), then you might call it unlawful, if the same content is being acquired without paying, because it was possible for the person to obey to the law, he had a choice.

As a side note: I think that in some cases copyright protection should be removed, if the material is of great importance for history and society itself. I am referring to footage of events of historic significance, such as news images. In those cases copyright becomes willingly or not a tool for censorship that prevents people from educating themselves about the facts of historic events

Additional Links to Delirium Videos

• Cirque du Soleil's Delirium, a 28 Minutes video (split up) on YouTube, including the complete Hula Hoops and Hand balancing Act: Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3
• 7:27 minutes video on YouTube.com about my experiences from the Delirium Encore event on October 15, 2008. I split the video into 3 parts for some reasons: Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.
• Official Delirium trailer for movie theater release from August 2008. Video on YouTube.com

Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC

Cirque du Soleil - Complaints and Suggestions Revisited

In my blog post and video from January about some issues with Cirque du Soleil, I was complaining about three things. 1.) about the hard to impossible to find Wintuk show soundtrack 2.) the unavailability of merchandize, especially the media content (DVDs, CDs etc.) outside the United States and 3.) about the missing tracks on many of the so called official soundtracks of Cirque du Soleil shows.

It is two months later now and I decided to check once more to see if anything changed this my last "rant".

If you rather watch and listen than reading my blog post, watch my 9 minutes video below, which covers pretty much the same content as I do in my writing below.

• Backup Link to video on YouTube
• Download the video in AVI format and 720x480 pixels resolution (50 MB) from MediaFire.com.

Issue 1 Reviewed - Where to Buy the Official Wintuk Soundtrack CD

Okay, first to the positive things (bitter sweet actually, because it is not all positive, only partially).

When I checked the CD section of the Cirque online shop (Cirque Boutique), I couldn't believe my eyes at first.

There it was (see screen shot image to your right), the  official soundtrack CD for the show "Wintuk" is now finally also available in the general Cirque du Soleil merchandise online store and not only in that special micro online shop on another web site that they created, just for that one lonely show.

You have to have "United States" selected as ship-to country to get that listing.

You can still buy the official Wintuk soundtrack CD at that special store. Regarding the listing. Also note that the United States version has even a second listing page for music cd releases (see second image on the left). I will get back to that one in a moment.

Okay, so far so good. But I also tried Google again, to see, if I would be able now to find the sound track cd, if I would still be looking for it, like I was last year.

So I typed "buy official Wintuk soundtrack cd" into the Google search box and checked the results that I got back on my screen. You can look at the screen shot of the Google.com search results page with my comments below.

The number one results is still a torrent with the pirated version of the soundtrack CD. mmmh.

The number two result is an eBay auction listing for the CD. Also not so great, because folks are sometimes abusing the lack of availability or easy access to things to make a quick buck by purchasing the stuff for the original price from the original source that nobody can find and then turn around to sell the same product with hefty profit margins added to it at a place that people are actually able to find.

The number three listing is finally the official special mini store for the Wintuk show, where you can buy the CD without any problems or artificial mark-ups etc. Hallelujah.

This is funny. The number four listing is my blog post from January where I complained about the inability to find the soundtrack hehe. Well, that post has also (just like this one) a link to the CD at the official store. I wonder if my nice and descriptive text links from my Cirque du Soleil 101 primer article and my other blog post had enough "Google Juice" to push the product listing of the CD out of the supplemental search index hell of Google and up into the top of the SERP's for the terms where it actually should rank number one?

Possible. My blog is getting older and older, more and more traffic and more and more authority and Google PageRank as a consequence of it.

The Cirque Boutique is nowhere to be found at all, but that does not surprise me a bit. I couldn't even help them with a link to the item there, because last time I checked, deep linking into the Cirque Boutique eShop did not work at all (unless you had a cookie set from a previous visit to the same online shop already, where you selected the correct shipping destination (country), which makes no sense whatsoever). Why would I want to refer people who visited the store already back to the same place again. If they wanted to buy something, then they probably did so already.

Well, until now, the few okay to good listings are surrounded by junk or unrelated  stuff, like promo videos on YouTube, Torrents, Torrents, Torrents, a Wikipedia article, the old out of stock Amazon.com marketplace listing of the CD, some forum posts and more Torrents to download the pirated version of the CD in MP3 format.

Issue 2 Reviewed - Cirque du Soleil Merchandise outside the U.S.

If you read the first segment of this post, then you already saw the CD listings for customers from the United States at the Cirque Boutique online store.

The listing shows 20 Music CD releases on two pages, available for purchase.

To your left is a screen shot of the DVD section of the store, also for customers in the United States only. Not too bad, 16 DVDs listed in total, 2 of them unfortunately out of stock, which makes it 14 DVDs available for purchase.

Now I went back, erased my cookie for the store that set the U.S. location and selected India as shipping destination instead.

The prices of the store are still shown in U.S. dollars, but the look and feel of the store changed (different site) and most importantly, the listings of available products changed as well. I did not embed the screen shots. I only linked to them via plain text link. Here they are:

• Link to screen shot of DVD section for India
• Link to screen shot of Music CD section for India

The results were bad, really bad.

The DVD selection is worse that it was last year in September, when I checked the last time. Instead of 5 DVDs available back then, only 4 DVDs were available 7 months later. Nothing compared to the 16 (or 14) DVD releases available for U.S. customers.

The Music CD selection is almost as bad, but just not as bad as the DVD section. It lists 11 CDs, but shows 4 of them as being out of stock = 7 CDs actually available. Not convincing, if you consider that for U.S. customers are 20 CDs available to choose from at the same category.

Cirque du Soleil - Fix This!

Oddities in Cirque Boutique U.S. Listings

1. Mystère CD or Mystère Live CD or Mystère What?

Have a look at the product detail pages screen shots for the two CDs.

• Mystère CD 1 product detail screen shot
• Mystère CD 2 product detail screen shot

I will keep this one short. Look at the screen shots and tell me, if you notice something?

Okay, I am just kidding. They are the same, except for the Image and the Catalog numbers. The real product pages even link to the same music sample files. The CDs are virtually identical, except for the cover and booklet.

So don't waste your money on both of them.. buy only one of them, unless you are a collector.

2. No Thrilling Ride to Kooza Show DVD

The Cirque Boutique lists the latest show DVD release for "Kooza", but unfortunately it is out of stock. The release contains two DVDs and the item is sold exclusively through the Cirque du Soleil Boutique. It is not made (officially) available anywhere else.

I purchased the DVD (2 discs) already a while ago and even blogged about it, when I got it. Before the show DVD was released, a "making of" documentary about Kooza was released earlier. The DVD release called "A Thrilling Ride Through Kooza"  is only 47 minutes in length.

See screen shot of product detail page for the documentary DVD "A Thrilling Ride Through Kooza".

The documentary DVD is available for $19 for, which is a not so good price for a rather short making of documentary feature. Like KA Extreme, about the show KA, which is also short like this. They did a better job with "Flow" about the show "O" and "The Mystery of Mystère", which are each 80 minutes in length or "Lovesick" about the show "Zumanity", which is 99 minutes in length.

Anyhow, the thing is that the whole 47 minutes documentary that they sell for $19 dollars is included on the second DVD discs with bonus features of the show DVD release for only $10 more. That CD, where you get a lot more bang for your buck is out of stock. Not very good for their own latest DVD show release, which they did not make available for purchase at other large retailers like Amazon.com etc.

If you do not happen to walk by a physical Cirque Store location (in Vegas, Orlando, Tokyo or Macao) where they might have a copy of it left (if you are lucky), your options to get the DVD legally are thinning out quickly.

Guess what, the whole disc set is available for download in ISO format via warez torrents or on Usenet. It will probably not for long that pirated versions will be the only versions that can be found in Google, unless I write a few more blog posts about the DVD release to out-rank them.

Not good. FIX THAT!

That Cirque cannot do much that quickly about missing tracks on soundtrack CD releases is clear.

However, I hope that the OST CD releases for the shows that launched last year in Asia and Las Vegas will become available for purchase soon. The music for the show "Criss Angel - Believe", which premiered in October in Las Vegas, Nevada, the show "Zaia", which premiered in Macao, China last August and the show "Zed", which launched also last October at the Disneyland Tokyo in its custom build theatre.

I hope that Cirque will not show the same attitude that it shows to U.S. content for non-U.S. customers in reverse. I mean that the merchandise for the Asian shows will not become available for purchase to customers outside of Asia (e.G. the United States). It would not surprise me too much, if this happens, but I try to remain optimistic and hope that Cirque will get their act together and fix this problem.

I also hope that the sound tracks will be complete. I will get them, one way or another, if not via purchase from a store officially, then via MP3 download from the Internet, where they will become available with absolute certainty.

Oh Boy, this post became longer than I originally intended. It also contains more stuff than my 10 minutes video. So if you read this post instead of just watching the video, them you got rewarded for hanging in with me :).

But now it is enough! Seriously!

Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC

Extended Cirque du Soleil KA and Love Videos

It has been a while since I created any extended videos about any of the Cirque du Soleil shows. Well, I have been busy and finished now two very extended videos for the Cirque du Soleil shows "KA", which is currently performed at the MGM Grand hotel and casino in Las Vegas, Nevada and the for the show "The Beatles Love", currently performed at the Mirage hotel and casino, also in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The last extended, 28 minutes long, video (78 MB download in AVI format) that I did was for the Music Concert/Show "Delirium", which was running in movie theaters for a short time already and where I am still waiting for the DVD release.

I still remember the C&D letter that I got from the Cirque because of my videos and therefor will not embed them here in this post for you to watch, without leaving my web site. Like I did with my old posts as the reaction to the letter, links with image place-holders will have to do hehe.

Cirque du Soleil "Love" Video

The "Love" video is a whopping 55 minutes long. You can download the video in AVI format (422 MB in size) here.

Backup link to video on Google Video

Cirque du Soleil "KA" Video

The "KA" video even tops the "Love" video, being 57 minutes long. You can download the video in AVI format (384 MB in size) from MediaFire.com via this URL.

Backup link to video on Google Video

As I always say, no video recording will be a substitute for watching a Cirque du Soleil show live and in person.

However, I hope that my video releases will put some pressure on Cirque du Soleil and MGM to release show DVDs for the resident shows in Las Vegas and elsewhere for people like me, who have seen the shows live already and for people who can not afford the trip in person to Las Vegas and watch the show there. They will have at least the next best thing available to them, which is watching a canned recording of the live show at home on DVD.

You can find links to the videos and other videos that I created for other Cirque du Soleil shows at my updated and extended Cirque du Soleil Primer Article by the way. Video downloads in AVI and WMV format for all my Cirque du Soleil videos can be found at this shared folder at the file sharing service MediaFire.com.

Informational Videos about the Cirque

I created a series of informational videos about Cirque du Soleil merchandise, which you might find interesting as well. I covered only the digital content though and not the clothing and other "schwag".

All links are going to the video recordings at my YouTube.com account about Cirque du Soleil.

• Cirque du Soleil shows on DVD
• Cirque du Soleil TV & IMAX Productions on DVD
• Cirque du Soleil Documentaries on DVD
• Cirque du Soleil Music on CD

To get a nice overview of the Cirque du Soleil shows from the past and present, check out my 5:37 minutes long video, which is an extended version of the 2004 promotional video "Then & Now" from the "Midnight Sun" DVD, covering the 9 new shows since 2004 in addition to the existing 11 shows of the original video.

This extended introduction to the world of Cirque du Soleil covers the following shows: La Magie Continue, Cirque Reinvente, Nouvelle Experience, Saltimbanco, Alegria, Mystere, "O", Dralion, Quidam, Varekai, Zumanity, KA, Love, Corteo, Delirium, Kooza, Wintuk, Zaia, Zed and Believe.

Cirque Complaints and Suggestions

I also created a video with some complaints and suggestions that I have about the Cirque and their merchandise.

Backup link to video on YouTube.com

1. I hate that they miss almost on every official sound track CD for any of their shows the music for several of the acts in the show. It is not an official sound track, if it is not complete!

2. It took me almost one year to find the official sound track CD for their seasonal show Wintuk. I even contacted their customer service who was not able to help me. I got a pirated copy of the album, which was not hard to find at first, until I finally found the web site with official Wintuk merchandise last year in December. The site is not in the search engines at all and why they do not offer the OST in their Cirque Boutique web site with their other CDs and DVDs is a mystery to me.

3. Many of their merchandise is not available for purchase, if you select as shipping location the wrong part of this planet (such as Asia). For an international company, touring world wide and having fans world wide, it is a shame to leave people out in the dust without the ability to legally buy many of the merchandise from the Cirque du Soleil web site. Especially the digital content like CDs and DVDs should be made available, because people can get those anyway, yes, illegal and as pirated version, but what do you want them to do, if this is the only option to get the stuff? People want to do the right thing. People want to pay the money. Don't force them to do the wrong thing, because there is absolutely no reason for it.

You don't believe me? See for yourself. I took some screen shots of the Cirque du Soleil online store (Boutique).

• Screen Shot - Cirque Boutique DVD Section for India
• Screen Shot - Cirque Boutique DVD Section for the United States

Some difference there, eh?!

FIX THIS!

Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC

Cirque Du Soleil: 20 Years Under the Sun - A Book Review

In case that you missed it. I created a book review video in October for the book "Cirque Du Soleil: 20 Years Under the Sun - An Authorized History" (Hardcover) by Tony Babinski (Author), Kristian Manchester (Contributor). I also uploaded this video review to Amazon.com, which is shown on the product detail page of the Book on their web site now. I find that pretty cool hehe.

As I said indirectly already, the book is available for purchase for about $37 (USD) at Amazon.com and here is the video review of the book. My review in text format follows right below this embed video.

Backup Link to Video on YouTube.com

As always, you can download this video in AVI format at Mediafire.com

The book is a monster in size and weight and packed with glossy images of the Cirque and its shows and provides a interesting behind the scene look at the humble origins of the enterprise and its worldwide successful shows.

It's a good gift for somebody who is interested in the Cirque, beyond just the acrobatics. Other people probably won't appreciate it as much, so check first, before you make the $37 investment for this book.

The book was published in 2004 and probably written in 2003 to early 2004. That means that many of the Cirque du Soleil shows are missing in this book. Cirque du Soleil was very busy over the past four years, since this book was published.

The last touring show covered by the book is "Varekai" and the last residential show "Zumanity", which is performed at the New York, New York hotel and casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. The show "KA" at the MGM is barely mentioned, not even by name yet and there is nothing to be found about the touring shows "Corteo" and "Kooza", the Las Vegas shows "Believe", "The Beatles - Love" and as I already mentioned "KA". The new resident Asian shows "Zaia" and "Zed" are of course also missing. The music concert "Delirium" is also not part of this book.

All those shows were created after 2004. This is quite a lot of shows, so I can only say again, that you better make sure that the person who you would like to buy this book for can actually appreciate it anyway.

All the new stuff is missing, but the more it covers the early Cirque and first shows that are not running anymore, such as "Fascination", "Le Grand Tour", "La Magie Continue", "Cirque Reinvente" and "Nouvelle Experience".

Also covered are the still running and touring shows "Saltimbanco", "Mystere", "O", "La Nouba", "Dralion", "Alegria" and the mentioned "Zumanity" and "Varekai". The special anniversary show for the 20th anniversary of Cirque du Soleil at Montreal "Midnight Sun" is also not mentioned. Keep in mind that this special performance happened also in 2004, the year when the book was published for the same reasons.

I don't know, if the book is also available in other languages than English, but I would assume that this is the case. It should also be available for purchase at any other well sorted book store, other than Amazon.com, such as Barnes & Noble or Borders.

I hope that you found this brief review helpful. Let me know via the comments section below.

To learn more about Cirque du Soleil, check out my Cirque du Soleil primer, here at RoySAC.com and also my special YouTube account "CirqueDuSoleilGuru" for Cirque videos and my Cirque du Soleil photo album collection at the photo sharing web site Flickr.com.

Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC

Negative Feedback for Criss Angel's and Cirque du Soleil's 'Believe'

I was surprised a lot when the first comments for the new Cirque du Soleil show "Criss Angel - Believe" were made at preview videos of the show at my YouTube.com channel "CirqueDuSoleilGuru" and also at previous posts of mine about the show here at my blog.

I cannot recall any instance where a Cirque du Soleil show received that many negative comments in such short period of time (less than 3 months). It's usually all praise and love with a stupid idiot posting some mindless comment once in a while. In case of the new show "Believe" did very specific negative comments pour in pretty much since the first pre-screenings of the show in September and onwards.

Here are the unaltered negative comments about the show from my various videos and blog posts. Since I did not alter them, all misspellings and grammatical errors remained as they were also.

User: HOTskull888 on YouTube said:

honestly the show was the shit. like it was nuts and dont say stupid as shit stuff like ow it suks or what ever because i do magic to and i dont care what anyone thinks of it

User: rjslider58 on YouTube said:

i saw the show oct 10, it sucked do your self a faver dont waste your time or money.

User: emtttmike on YouTube said:

I wasted my money going to see 'Believe" on 10/17...I sat waiting for it to get better and it never did...I actually looked at my watch hoping it would end soon. It was that bad.

User: jshkneale on YouTube said:

this show sucked. i mean it really sucked. it would have been good only if they changed one thing,.....Chris angel, he destroyed the show. the dancers were OK if you like them to be out of sync with each other.

User: Kraken303 on YouTube said:

Anyone who thinks Criss Angel is a good magician is completely ignorant when it comes to magic. The show does not suck because of Cirque--it sucks because Criss can't pull off any tricks without using extensive camera edits or plants. I really makes me angry to think that that $100 million dollars was spent on this show, and it's still so BAD.

User: taxthis2001 on YouTube said:

Saw Believe last week, was disappointed. To much Cirque not enough Angel. I was very impressed with mind freak on the street but some of those disappearing tricks done on a stage with 40 trap doors are not as impressive. Criss u can do better. I leave this feedback to help guide your show for the better, please use it as such. Keep Mind Freak going.

User: 2RISEPROD on YouTube said:

Enjoy Criss Angel on A&E for years, when he said for all skeptics I will be doing this stuff live in my new show "Believe' I was like OMG! really can't wait! Went to Vegas for the opening, must say it was a total disaster and waste of money!! It made no sense at all! Criss did a dove from sleeve trick - and some very predictable birthday trick..Then he lip sang his MF song at the end, people were leaving before the show was over and bitching in the Luxor about how it sucked ass!! ??

User: iglesiasarenas on YouTube said:

is not MF but is not "o" or "the bettles shows" is the worst show of Circus du solei with the best magician Criss...

User: StealthCracker on YouTube said:

I went to the show Oct 4, and I thought it was too much dancing. -.-" only a few tricks performed. HE NEEDS MORE TRICKS

and

Everyone look at the words BELIEVE... if you look at the logo, you'll see that the BE---VE is faded out, leaving bold words: LIE. I found this out. Check it out!!!

Anonymous Blog Comment here at RoySAC.com:

IMOP...I went to see the Criss Angel Believe show at the Luxor, and I must say.... IT WAS HORRIBLE! I am a huge Criss Angel fan, I think he is a great entertainer, however this show was horrible. I found out after watching the show that everyone that has seen the show to date has hated it also, everyone left the theater talking about how bad it was, my suggestion is it is better to save your money for another show and skip this trash. Also, it is not kid friendly at all, I did not take my kids to it, however there where some there and they left in tears from being scared of it. Think of Alice in Wonderland on really bad drugs.

User: realhonest1 on YouTube said:

I went Nov. 3. The show has lived up to the reviews. It sucked. I wish someone would have said "lets go!" Unfortunately we sat through to the dismal end. I want my $200 and 2 hrs back! Bad actor and bad tricks. On a pos. note the backgrounds and Wade Robson choreography were nice. Criss Angel is why this show bombs. I used to be a fan, but can't even watch Mind Freak anymore. Way to go Criss, thanks for robbing your fans.

Thoughts and My Own Comments

I wrote a comment at one of my "Believe" videos at YouTube in response to some supporting comments by "Loyals" (Criss Angel Fan Club Members), who were appalled by the negative comments by others and expressed their sympathy for Criss. It reflects pretty much what I believe to be the actual problem here.

I have the feeling Criss managed to disappoint both crowds at once, for the "Mindfreaks" is the show not freaky enough and for the "Cirque Fans" is there too little circus and too much dancing, with some creepy atmosphere.

I cannot imagine that the show itself is that bad, its just not what people in the know expected it to be like. So they either get over it and take a new look at it from a distance or Criss has to look for new type of fans, who are not prejudges and in-flexible.

I will be in Las Vegas in January 2009 for a conference and hope that I will be able to see the show myself and get a real grip on what the problem might be here.

In the meantime enjoy a extended trailer video for the show that I created. Those images look actually pretty cool and promising, don't you think?

Backup Link to Video on YouTube.com

You can download this video in 480x360 pixels resolution and AVI (XVID/MP3 Lame) format at Mediafire.com.

Additional Links related to this post

• Video - Criss Angel - Believe - Animated Slide Show
• Video - Cirque du Soleil & Criss Angels -Believe- Special Preview
• Video - Cirque du Soleil - Believe - 1st Real Show Footage
• Official Show Homepage at CirqueDuSoleil.com

Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC