Las Vegas Weekly

April 27, 2009 · 2:27 PM

Photo Gallery: The multimillion-dollar Britney Spears Circus Tour

By Robin Leach

Britney Spears Circus Tour stop at MGM Grand Garden Arena on April 25.

Photo: TVT

Moving the Britney Spears Virgin Mobile Circus Tour throughout the United States is akin to the maneuvers of a small army. In fact, when the three-ring stage is shipped off to Europe for that leg of the world tour, it will take three weeks just to get all the equipment there!

The logistics are mind-boggling, and I received a close-up look at the extraordinary organization behind it all when I toured backstage for an hour before Britney’s concert Saturday at MGM Grand Garden Arena. This world tour is her seventh and promotes Circus, her sixth studio album, which, despite all the tabloid headlines of her tumultuous life, is still a remarkable succe$$ story!

The stage alone costs $10 million to build as an intricate jigsaw puzzle, and it costs $6 million a week just to keep the tour running with its road staff of 220 -- plus the cast of circus performers! The stage gear, including sex swings, love couches, unicycles, stripper poles, a gold cage and giant picture frames, travels in some 3,000 rolling cases packed into 32 semis -- plus wardrobe for Britney and the onstage performers. There’s also a kitchen to feed everybody three meals a day!

Steve Dixon, who is the tour’s CEO, told me it’s the most ambitious and biggest production he’s ever handled in his long theatrical rock career. “Previously, Justin Timberlake held the record with 27 trucks,” he said.

The MGM concert was the 31st stop on the 49-city U.S. tour. “So far, we haven’t lost or forgotten anything!” Steve said. He has a crew of 150 roadies who set up and break down the massive stages, lighting, rigging and nine hydraulic elevator mechanical features -- and they hire another 150 crew at each stop! Sometimes they will work 24-hour shifts as they did coming to Las Vegas from Phoenix.

“We finished in Phoenix at 11 p.m. and had everything packed up and loaded five hours later. Then we arrived in Las Vegas and unloaded by 9:30 a.m.,” he told me. It takes as long as 12 hours to rebuild the entire set, and when I toured just two hours before the 8 p.m. curtain call for the Pussycat Dolls’ opening act, all the final installation and tweaks were still taking place!

Britney’s tour also travels with six full-time wardrobe women to keep the 350 costumes in order. They, too, hire four extra seamstresses in each city the concert plays. Their department handles 30 full loads of laundry each day, with two washer and dryer machines that also travel in the entourage.

There’s so much sparkle and bling on the performers’ outfits that wardrobe also has $150,000 of Swarovski crystals on the trip as backup!

Photo: TVT

Pussycat Dolls open for Britney Spears' Circus Tour stop at MGM Grand Garden Arena on April 25.

It’s a staggering production complete with four aerialists who jump from the rigged ceiling of the big top without a safety net. There’s also a full surround 360-degree TV screen with a video clip from Perez Hilton no less to set the entire manic scene. It rises for Britney’s opening song as she descends from the ceiling in a gold hoop wearing her circus ringmaster uniform. It’s also used midway through the show for sponsor Virgin Mobile’s cellular phones.

Britney has a duplicate set of costumes for her wardrobe changes so there’s no danger of something not being ready. I was shown where her entire wardrobe -- all in numbered sequence to match her song order -- is rolled under the stage to her own dressing room because she makes so many costume changes during her 95-minute workout. One of them has to take place in less than 60 seconds!

There also are three elevators that rise up from underneath the stages, and all are marked with an X where the performers jump on them. Additionally, there’s another elevator that lowers from the ceiling rigging over the center stage. The road crew travels with a full-time masseuse, and at each city, they bring in a local chiropractor and yoga instructor for classes!

I met with Britney’s manager Larry Rudolph, who has his own traveling Reindeer Management office. It gets packed up and unpacked at each stop. He told me: “Everything has gone according to plan. It’s incredible logistics but no problems. Britney has been amazing. Everybody loves the show, and everybody marvels at her nonstop stamina.

Photo: TVT

Robin Leach with two Las Vegas residents who are part of the Britney Spears Circus Tour.

“It’s been a full sell-out wherever we’ve been, and even the front row Britney Love Couches have been sold out 99 percent of the time at $2,500 per seat. We’ve had great celebrity turnouts, too. This weekend here in Vegas, we have Paris and Nicky Hilton, Megan Fox, Carmen Electra, Pauly Shore, Jorge Garcia from Lost and my two Sunset Tan partners, Devin Haman and Jeff Bozz.”

I sat alongside Jorge for the show, and he like 14,000 other fans loved every moment of it. Everybody I spoke to at the concert was amazed by Britney’s choreography and dancing stamina and nobody cared if she lip-synched her songs or not. The basic comment was, “It was worth whatever it cost, whether we stood or we had seats. The show was amazing, the acrobats and dancers incredible. The whole Circus production was fantastic.”

Click HERE for our first report early yesterday, and click HERE for our Editor Johnny Kats’ story. Our good friends at AEG Live/Concerts West who promoted the show pointed out to me that Vegas was the biggest moneymaking stop on the tour to date in terms of ticket sales.

Larry told me that Britney and he hope to be in London at the same time as Michael Jackson starts his run of concerts at the 02 Arena, where she also will perform. “The hope is it times out so Michael can see Britney’s show, and she can see his,” he added.

Photo: TVT

Britney Spears Circus Tour stop at MGM Grand Garden Arena on April 25.

The Pussycat Dolls will be in Australia headlining their own tour when Britney moves on to Europe. PCD has our hometown hero and Grammy Award-winning Ne-Yo and Lady GaGa opening for them Down Under.

Backstage, one room had been decorated in a circus motif with posters, costumes and memorabilia for a select group of 175 of Britney’s fans. Some had traveled from as far away as Boston and paid $700 a ticket to stand up right beside the three-ring stage. I met two fans from Phoenix who had seen both her show there last week.

The performers from the Big Apple Circus who put on stunning acrobatics in between the Pussycat Dolls and Britney’s spectacle stopped in to greet them. They included three Vegas performers: Cassie Sandow, her husband Constantine and his brother Serge, who worked at Circus Circus before joining the Big Apple troupe.

I also met up with long-time-ago pal Ed Alonzo, the self-titled Misfit of Magic. I knew the illusionist when he was starring in Saved by the Bell Britney. is his assistant in three different magic segments of the production. Yes, she gets sawed in half and vanishes in one box only to reappear split seconds later in another box on the complete opposite side of the stage! Ed is currently the lead illusionist on MyNetwork TV’s Masters of Illusion.

Photo: TVT

Britney Spears Circus Tour stop at MGM Grand Garden Arena on April 25.

Ed told me, “She does all the classic elements of magic. Britney loves magic and really enjoys doing it. She dances so hard in the show, she gets a little break when I saw her in half or transport her from one place to end up in another. She looks incredibly toned and in fantastic shape. She has to dance really hard with all the dance crew kind of moves with hip-hop and tumbling. She works her tail off.”

Britney was fairly low-key during her Las Vegas visit. Paris and Nicky Hilton met her backstage after her show and congratulated her on the production and performance. The Hilton sisters went on to Lavo in The Palazzo for dinner, followed by clubbing at Tao in The Venetian and XS in the Encore.

Early yesterday, Britney showed up briefly for an exclusive after-party for about 50 people in music and movie mogul Phil Maloof’s Sky Villa atop brother George Maloof’s Palms Place. The Pussycat Dolls hit Prive for Virgin Mobile’s after-party and Pure in Caesars Palace for their own nightclub appearance before Brit’s bash along with her Circus performers and dancers.

DJ Paul Oakenfold, one of the two resident turntable titans at the Palms, spun the wheels of steel for the party. Although Britney left earlier, her guests danced until 3 a.m. During the party, the jugglers and contortionists from her tour put on a show to entertain the guests.

Chef Kerry Simon from Simon at Palms Place catered the ultra-private party with sliders, crispy sesame rice and spicy tuna tartar, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for dessert with his junk flood platter of snowballs, brownies, cotton candy, caramel popcorn and ice cream.

Britney had time off to return to her new home in Calabasas, Calif., to spend time with her two sons yesterday and again today, and then tomorrow she flies to Chicago to perform her Circus extravaganza all over again! The U.S. tour wraps May 5 for a one-month break before she opens in London on June 6!

Robin Leach has been a journalist for more than 50 years and has spent the past decade giving readers the inside scoop on Las Vegas, the world’s premier platinum playground.

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