Creation Myth: Cirque du Soleil

In over two decades and more than 15 separate productions, Cirque du Soleil has never had a flop. By comparison, 9 out of 10 shows on Broadway — productions aimed at the same sophisticated, big-ticket audience as Cirque — fail to earn back the money invested in them.

Cirque's reputation for never missing is so strong that, in exchange for half the profits, four Las Vegas resorts, as well as Disney World, each agreed to spend tens of millions of dollars to build a custom theater to house a Cirque show and foot half the show's production costs, which can hit $25 million.

Cirque du Soleil was hatched in 1984 by two high school dropouts — Guy Laliberté, a 23-year-old Montreal fire breather, and Daniel Gauthier, 24, a youth hostel manager. In what had to be one of the entertainment industry's most audacious acts of persuasion, they talked the Quebec government into granting them just over $1 million to develop a show around local street performers as part of a festival celebrating the 450th anniversary of Montreal's founding. The pair hired Dragone in 1985, and what he calls the "transdisciplinary experience" of circus blended with stagecraft, live music, and song became Cirque's trademark and a hit across Canada.

The moment of truth arrived in 1987 when Laliberté and Gauthier took their act to the L.A. Arts Festival. The pair knew that if the show flopped, they couldn't afford to fly the cast and equipment home. They needn't have worried, however: The standing ovation went on for five minutes, and by the time the box office opened the next morning, 500 people were standing in line. Cirque du Soleil was no longer a nonprofit organization.

Business 2.0, The Phantasmagoria Factory by Geoff Keighley

This is a great creation myth and captures the spirit and ethos of this remarkable organization, their audacity and their willingness to take huge risks to deliver a great experience to their audiences.

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photo credit: StuSeeger