Cirque Eloize kicked off its 10 day schedule yesterday at the Dubai World Trade Centre. Circus tickets are available and more expensive from what you are used to pay back home, providing you are an expat in UAE. Local people and permanent residents do not have much choice, but to accept the high price or to fly to another country in order to get regular-priced tickets.
Expensive show and concert tickets are pretty common in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, where the local entertainment production is still relatively undeveloped. The theaters do not nurture local talent and do not stage seasonal performances in which young or already accomplished actors can participate. In Europe, for example, even smaller cities with less than a hundred thousand people population have state-backed local theaters and local artistic troupes who stage a number of seasonal performances.
In UAE, the business of entertainment is booming with a number of Dubai and Abu Dhabi-based companies competing to bring in the most popular and not so much popular international artists and troupes.
However, if you compare the tickets price demanded locally to the one you are used to pay back home or you can find online in listings from other countries, you would be very much surprised by the difference.
For example, a ticket for the Bulgarian Sofia ballet performance in Bulgaria cost about twenty dollars, while in Dubai is offered for nearly hundred dollars or 360 dirhams.
Another inflationary strategy of the local entertainment companies is to present not so popular troupes as internationally acclaimed in order to rise the ticket prices. This is the case with the Cirque Eloize tickets, which are aligned to the Cirque du Soleil’s ticket prices. Although the both circus troupes originate from Canada, there is a huge difference in their performances and popularity. Even the Cirque du Soleil’s tickets are more expensive in Dubai than in other countries where the different shows are staged.
However, the average consumer is not supposed to be aware of such facts, but to pay the ticket price to watch the show. Enjoy the performance!
