By Ashley Wiebe

Cirque exceeds expectations

May 29, 2018 | 4:23 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB — It took crews roughly 16 hours to set up for the Cirque du Soleil show, but just under four to tear it all down.

Around 80 crew members and performers took over the Canalta Centre last week for the ice show, Crystal, which had seven performances over the span of five days last week.

The show itself was a first of its kind for Cirque, which combined acrobatic stunts and ice skaters.

Tammy Sweeney, general manager of the Canalta Centre, said the show did better than staff were anticipating.

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More than 15,800 people took in the sights and sounds over the five days.

“We are talking with Cirque about another event down the road, it’ll be a few years away,” she said. “It’s not going to be a next year thing, but we’re also looking for those events that are right for this community. Cirque has shown us that the community stands behind it and supports it. We do need to now find another one that has a similar kind of impact on the community.”

Sweeney said staff are working on a study to outline how much the community benefited by having the show here.

“The people in this town supported it, they had a blast, they loved it and it just, it worked really, really well,” she said. “We are working on an economic impact study right now which looks at how much was the actual spend in the community, so what did the community benefit from by having Cirque in the building.”

The results are expected to be released by the end of the week.