article_detail

If you've ever watched a Cirque du Soleil show and wondered how on earth they put it all together, the answer involves a lot of coordination, a very large tent and somewhere between 100 and 200 people all pulling in the same direction at exactly the same moment.

 

The big top went up at Playa de San Juan on July 10, and it's quite something to behold. Twenty-five metres tall, fifty metres in diameter, supported by four central posts and held in place by a network of ropes tensioned from the outside by a separate crew of around a hundred technical staff.

 

Getting the tent up requires the two teams to work in precise coordination, with workers inside dragging the poles clockwise in sections until the full circumference is complete. "That's why coordination between inside and outside is essential," says Egoitz Txibu Gorbea, assistant head of sound, who describes reaching this stage of the assembly as genuinely exciting. "Because once it's up, we can finally work inside the tent," he adds, referring to the stands, stage, lighting and sound equipment that transform the structure into a fully working performance space.

 

The whole setup takes seven or eight days. Dismantling it afterwards takes just three, with 54 trailers needed to transport everything away. Once ready, the tent holds around 2,500 people per show.

 

The production coming to Alicante is Kurios: Cabinet of Curiosities, which has already drawn more than seven million people worldwide. The premise is wonderfully inventive.

 

A character known as the Seeker is convinced there exists a hidden, invisible world just below the surface of everyday life, a place where the most outlandish ideas and grandest dreams lie waiting. When a cast of extraordinary characters descends on his makeshift mechanical world, his collection of curiosities begins to come to life one by one. Part circus, part fantasy, part puzzle, and all spectacle.

 

Performances run from July 16 to August 23, with between seven and ten shows per week. This is part of an established relationship between Cirque du Soleil and the Alicante Ayuntamiento, following an agreement signed in 2022 that brings the company back every two summers.

 

Given the timing, organisers are expecting a strong international audience throughout August.

 

Click here for tickets and full performance information.