Folks behind Cavalia reveal process of securing land for Odysseo, a show combining performance and equestrian arts.
Anyone traveling through Midtown during rush-hour traffic on the Downtown connector can’t help but notice, a big-ass tent, erected 125 feet in the air.
It’s the world’s largest touring big top designed for a new show by Cavalia called Odysseo. The company held its first Atlanta show two years ago at Atlantic Station, featuring horses, dancers and acrobatics.
Getting the tent to its Midtown parking lot took almost a year of negotiation, 115 semi-trucks traveling from Montreal and nearly 300 employees, according to Duncan Fisher, tour director at Cavalia.
“From location to location, we’re moving an entire city,” Fisher told What Now Atlanta in a telephone interview Monday. “Our traveling company has everything a city has.”
Located at the corner of 8th and Spring Streets in Midtown, Cavalia’s towering white big top was “too big for Atlantic Station,” he said. The Midtown development was home to the show in 2009 when Cavalia’s tent was much smaller.
The company considered holding its show at Turner Field, Lakewood Amphitheatre and Atlantic Station among other sites, but with 250,000-square-feet of needed space, most of those locations weren’t suitable, according to Fisher.
“First, we have to identify a parcel of land that is big enough. Atlantic Station simply wasn’t big enough for Odysseo’s big top,” Fisher said. “Second, we consider the marketing value of the site. The visibility from a major highway is important.”
Cavalia is positioned on two parcels of land, separated by 8th street: one that was being utilized as a parking lot and the other vacant. The most difficult process in securing the space was working with the city to shutter 8th Street during the show’s duration.
“Councilman Kwanza Hall played a key role in securing the site,” Fisher said. “Typically, when we approach a land owner they’re pleasantly surprised and easy to work with.”
To secure the location, which in other cities normally takes sixth months, took nearly a year, according to Fisher.
Once the site is determined, getting the space show ready, takes about a month he said. That includes dismantling the entire Cavalia setup in Montreal, transporting it to Atlanta, leveling the ground tents sit on, erecting the tent and rehearsals.
Unfortunately, unless the show gets extended, the beautiful white tent will disappear from the Midtown skyline after its last show on January 8.
Odysseo premieres in Atlanta on December 7. Tickets can be purchased here.
22 Responses
Lucky parking garage owners nearby!
I was wondering why this didn’t go back to Atlantic Station. It has been very interesting to watch this go up.
This should be a big business booster for the restaurants nearby. They would be smart to offer a theater menu like the restaurants near the Fox.
Thanks for the story. I was surprised that it wasn’t going in AS. Glad to know it was simply not possible and not that the new owners messed up a relationship! Hope to see an upcoming Cirque at AS soon.
Also surprised that this wasn’t at Atlantic Station. Maybe it’s just perception, but the AS area seems much larger than the 8th street site to me. And as for visibility, I think the AS site was MUCH more prominent.
Sad day, when your city’s skyline is so drab that you’ll miss a tent being part of it…
^^^Tell that to Phillip Johnson, John Burgee, Pickard Chilton, SOM, Kevin Roche, John Portman, Gensler, Smallwood Reynolds Stewart, and other masters who have constributed significantly to Atlanta architecture.
On another note, I thought it was more visually acute and appealing at Atlantic Station. The blue and yellow stripes among the brick facades and alongside the highway beckoned me into the show. This one I can see from my balcony, but it just does not do it for me.
Isn’t this the same site that Cirque du Soleil used for several years back in the early 90’s before Tech Square was developed?
Paying 100 per person to see some horses in a tent with menz in tights is just dumb. No wonder everyone in this country is losing their homes.
@Surke I saw this horse crap last time and it was horrible. Do not recommend!
@ Johnny – I’d be happy to. Our skyline is about as drab as it comes. Of course, I understand it’s not all the architect’s faults either…I’m sure the city council would shit a brick – a very plain and boring brick – if someone proposed something truly eye catching for our skyline.
@ Surke & Gift Horse – While I agree that this show is really not worth the money, making a correlation between the fact that some people might pay to see and enjoy this, and foreclosures might be worthy of the “dipshit of the week” award.
Fixing street life is far more important than what a skyline appears like. The cities and areas of cities with the best street life in this country are absent of, or have a far inferior skyline than more notable places. Get street life activity where it needs to be, then worry about how a city appears from a distance. I love how they look as much as the next person, but as an intown resident the types of spaces I move about and engage in supercede what some jack off from Cobby County thinks it looks like on his drive in from work.
There are very few people I wish to encounter in a dark alley…Urbanist is one of them.
But I forgot his comments and opinions hold no merit as long as he hides behind anonymity…
I, for one, lost my house in Gwinnett county last year because I could not stop attending Cirque de Soleil shows. I even had to release all my pets in a public park. Oh the horror.
Loves it.
As a Midtown resident who lives higher up in a tower, I definitely appreciate the designs of the buildings above the first few floors 🙂
I’m also planning on going into strategic default on the note on my condo. How? Odysseo every single night. 🙂
@Midtowner – can I join you?
@BC – Totally agree with you, re: street-life. However, I do believe that some truly unique architecture can spawn street life and interest in a city, if done the right way.
@Midtowner – Sorry, perhaps I should come up with a name that’s as clairvoyant as yours?
@Urbanist
As an architecture professional, trust me I think some major work could be done on the skyline. But as an urban dweller, the experience on street level is not influenced by what happens 600 ft. above the ground. New York and Chicago are perfect examples. The most vibrant, eclectic and memorable places occur not in their downtowns and midtowns where the beautiful high rises are, but in the smaller scaled buildings, often older and more drab. South Street in Philadelphia is another perfect example. A good example of a beatuiful building but horrible street life is the new Bank of America tower in NYC. It is a stunning building in the skyline. But the way it crashes to the ground is an activity killer, especially on such prime real estate diagonal from Bryant Park. A reason (vibrant street life) must be created first to warrant developers and companies to build memorable buildings that will influence that skyline.
I just cringed at the mention of South Street. I’m from Philly and I hope Atlanta never attempts to recreate South Street… it’s a dump.
Check out Vancouver sometime. Terribly boring skyline. But they get the street level right. It’s a very pleasing place to walk around (well except for the heroin addicts). It’s a much nicer place to live and work which is probably why it’s so insanely expensive. In Atlanta we’ve figured out how to use loading docks, blank walls, surface lots, and interstate access ramps to guarantee that no one will ever pay too much to live here.
@BC – “The most vibrant, eclectic and memorable places occur not in their downtowns and midtowns where the beautiful high rises are, but in the smaller scaled buildings, often older and more drab.”
A building doesn’t have to be 60+ stories to be architecturally significant. Some of the greatest architecture in NYC are some of the old row houses, and borwnstones that are 1 – 5 stories tall. I’m not advocating 10 new Ghery towers…I just think we could stand to be more architecturally diverse – i.e. no more Novare construction. I’d rather start filling in some of the blank space, with shorter, et more unique buildings (while keeping things dense, of course)…
At least we’ve found some value for the large vacant lots in Midtown.
@Jason – you are exactly right. Vancouver’s skyline is filled with monotonous blue-greenish tinted glass, very dull. But those blah towers all include street-level activity that makes Vancouver’s streetlife top-notch.