From POLLSTAR – By RYAN BORBA
Traveling to more than 80 North American cities Sept. 2 to Dec. 17, the Disney Junior “Costume Palooza” tour brings family entertainment back to the touring stage, with some new friends along for the ride.
Along with Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Doc McStuffins and other familiar favorites, the tour will also include characters from “Marvel’s Spidey and his Amazing Friends” for a first time. The tour is described as an immersive, interactive concert experience that will include music, dancing, acrobatics and 3D special effects.
“We’re so excited to bring family entertainment back to the stage,” says Jonathan Shank, whose Terrapin Station Entertainment is producing the tour. “It’s been two and a half years, and families and children have been waiting to connect or reconnect with their favorite characters, and we’re doing it in the grandest possible fashion.” Tour stops on the routing include famous concert venues such as the Opry House in Nashville, the Fabulous Fox Theater in St. Louis and Atlanta and more.
Presales begin tomorrow; with public onsale May 20.
Shank’s relationship with Disney Junior goes back about five years, when he first produced the Disney Junior Dance Party On Tour, which has been nominated in two separate years for Pollstar Awards and has sold more than 350,000 tickets.
Shank says the concept is to create a high-quality show that can be seen as a type of “kid’s first concert,” appealing mostly to the kindergarten-and-under demographic and providing the opportunity for high-end choreography starring characters familiar to the whole family.
With COVID putting the brakes on children’s shows for most of the past two years, pent-up demand is sure to be high, and the addition of the Spider-Man universe can’t hurt, either.
“It changes the nature of the show slightly,” Shank says of the addition of the popular Marvel characters. “In addition to bringing high end choreography and songs, we’re also going to have acrobatics and other things people would expect from Spidey and his Amazing Friends.”
The new live show is written and directed by Amy Tinkham.
Shank says the tour will be bringing along two buses and two trucks, with a total footprint of about two dozen people with this type of show more props, wardrobe, costumes and audio-video synchronization than most music tours.
With 80 dates and nearly back-to-back show nights, Shank says it was time to go back out in a big way.
“We wanted to come out the gate with a big bang and really prove that family entertainment is back in the marketplace for good,” Shank says.
