Cirque du Soleil’s newest big top performance ‘Echo’ set to open in Calgary

Cirque du Soleil's newest show has taken over Stampede Park, as rehearsals are underway for ‘Echo’.

The team from Cirque du Soleil has arrived in Calgary to set up and rehearse its newest performance – called Echo – and it’s a massive undertaking.

It takes 50 people more than four days to set up the blue-and-white tent the show is performed in – which has a seating capacity of close to 2,600 – at Stampede Park.

“The logistics behind a show like this is very impressive,” said Kevin Albert, Echo senior publicist. “We’re traveling here with 72 truckloads of equipment. It takes us about seven days to set up, and then about four days to tear down and go to the next city.”

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While the big top is the main attraction for visitors, there is a small village that accompanies it, with an artistic tent, kitchen, administrative offices, warehouses and dining area for cast and crew.

The village is self-sufficient, with its own electrical power supply, and the kitchen is at its heart, serving more than 300 meals daily to artists, staff, families and friends.

“We have 53 artists that you will see on stage at any point during the show, but we’re 122 that are traveling with this show,” said Albert. “So the rest of them are technical people, side people – maintaining this equipment here, the tents and all that stuff – our guests experience supervisor and then obviously all the support for the this show as well.”

Echo is described as a story of connection, intention and the bond between humans and the animal kingdom.

It’s centred around a massive cube – measuring seven metres squared – and blends a spectacular range of audio, visual and tactile media, but also sets the stage for a wide variety of acrobatics and theatrics.

“It is very different from any Cirque du Soleil show you would have seen before,” Albert said. “It’s the newest big tour baby, so it’s the newest big top show. It was created specifically for a big top, but the set piece that you’re going to see when you come here, the big cube on stage, is actually the size of a set piece that we would have in a theater somewhere that wouldn’t move – so it’s really, really impressive.”

Echo was supposed to be released in 2020, but the show was put on hold by the global COVID-19 pandemic.

It was resurrected in 2022, and its first performance was in April 2023 in Montreal.

Now, it will visit six different cities per year.

It’s the first-ever Cirque show to feature six live vocalists, and ten video projectors are used to cover the cube, the stage and the artists – the most ever used for a big top show produced by Cirque du Soleil.

To learn more about the show, you can visit Cirque du Soleil’s website.