Young girls flock to Disney on Ice, touring shows that feature figure skaters dressed as cartoon characters. Will a live arena show featuring Marvel superheroes bring out older boys
Feld Entertainment, which produces the Disney show, monster truck shows and the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus, on Wednesday announced a partnership with Marvel to introduce a road show featuring Spider-Man, the Hulk, Thor and the Fantastic Four. The show will arrive in the summer of 2014; production expenses are expected to exceed $10 million.
These arena shows, once an entertainment industry backwater, have grown into important tools for media companies seeking to further exploit their creative franchises and deepen their brands, particularly among children. Arena shows can also help penetrate overseas markts; Disney only recently was able to introduce a cable channel in Russia, but its live shows have long toured there.
It’s not a small business, either. About 12.5 million people a year attend Disney on Ice shows around the world (or an offshoot, Disney Live, which is essentially the ice show without the ice). To put that in perspective, Broadway as a whole sold 12.2 million tickets last year.
While girls and families are the primary audience, DreamWorks Animation last year started targeting boys, introducing a live show based on “How to Train Your Dragon.†That expensive arena extravaganza features Vikings and more than a dozen giant puppet dragons, some with wingspans of more than 40 feet.
