Cirque du Soleil looks for a new place to pitch the tent in the Barcelona area
The Hospitalet de Llobregat City Council considers the agreement with the company, which set up every two years on a large plot of land in the city, to be finalized.
BarcelonaCirque du Soleil is looking for a new location to establish itself in the metropolitan area of Barcelona, after the L'Hospitalet de Llobregat City Council has terminated the agreement it had with the company. For eight years, the Quebecois circus has brought its shows to the esplanade of Travessia Industrial in the city, next to the municipal stadium. Now, however, L'Hospitalet wants to dedicate this space to its own facilities, which is why it has not renewed the contract with the circus and the company will have to look for an alternative. The Councilor for Urban Agenda 2030-2050, José Antonio Alcaide, explains to the Efe agency that "the city has evolved and now needs to have spaces for facilities dedicated to citizens and for green areas".
The plot, of 19,000 m2 and located in the Bellvitge neighborhood, hosted Cirque du Soleil for the first time in 2018 with the show Totem. The last production the company will perform there is Kurios, the story of a cabinet of curiosities from which acrobatics, poetry, and humor will emerge, which will premiere in October. Regarding the future of the plot, the councilor explains that they are still “working on it” and “discussing possible uses with residents”. For its part, the company says it would have liked to stay in L'Hospitalet. "The venue and the relations with the City Council are excellent," assures the head of contracts and permits for the circus, Dani Pérez, who clarifies that the agreement they signed in 2016 with a projection until 2030 was not a "watertight contract", but rather "of intentions".
Three possible new venues
Cirque du Soleil wants to continue bringing its shows to Barcelona every two years and, for this reason, is now looking for alternative locations. “We have seen three spaces with possibilities, but we are in a very early stage and we do not have exact data on whether it will be feasible or not,” details Pérez, while acknowledging the “complexity” of hosting their big top: “We drive 1,250 stakes, it's many tons, and we need water, drainage, communication, and visibility”.
The "ideal", he explains, would be not to move too far from Barcelona and to reach a long-term agreement that would allow them to make investments in the venue to adapt it to their needs. This is what they did in L'Hospitalet, where they contributed to the investment made by the City Council to adapt the space by building a transformation center to power the circus without having to use generators. According to the 2016 agreement, the longest signed by the company until then, the company would set up in the city with an approximately biennial periodicity, bringing a minimum of five productions. The pandemic, however, made it difficult for them to maintain this periodicity. In fact, Kurios is the fourth show they will perform in L'Hospitalet.
