MSC Cruises has announced an exclusive partnership with Cirque du Soleil, to create original live entertainment shows onboard its new ships.
The productions will take place inside purpose-built lounges, featuring 450 seats, including a 200-seat restaurant. The line said the €20 million lounges will also include “the latest audio-visual technology” and have been designed specifically for the shows.
New Cirque du Soleil productions will take place six nights a week during sailings, with two performances a night, all onboard the line’s four new Meraviglia project ships.
The first – 4,500-passenger ship MSC Meraviglia – is being built at the STX shipyard in Saint Nazaire, France. It will set sail on its inaugural season in the western Mediterranean from June 2017, and will be the first to have three homeports: Genoa, Marseille and Barcelona. Further Meraviglia project ships are scheduled for delivery in 2019, 2020 and 2022.
Pierfrancesco Vago, executive chair of MSC Cruises, said: “Together with Cirque du Soleil we are now designing a totally new, live entertainment experience.”
Yasmine Khalil, president of 45 Degrees, Cirque du Soleil’s special projects company, added: “We have found in MSC a long-term partner with a clear vision about trends in the cruising industry and a strong desire to be the leader by taking entertainment onboard to a whole new level. For Cirque du Soleil, this is what inspires us and provides us with a great creative challenge that we require for each new project we embark on”.
The partnership with Cirque du Soleil was unveiled aboard MSC Fantasia in Barcelona, Spain during “All Stars of the Sea” – the annual MSC Cruises travel-trade gathering, which rewards the company’s top performing partners in front of an audience of 1,800 travel agents.
