Genre Kids Location Touring | Show type Arena Creator Vincent Egan | |
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Company VStar Entertainment Group Date of premiere 17 September 1980 (1980-09-17) | ||
Sesame Street Live is the live touring show based on the children's television show Sesame Street Produced by Minneapolis-based VStar Entertainment Group.
Contents
VEE Corporation, the show opened on September 17, 1980, with a production of Sesame Street Live "Missing Bird Mystery" playing at the Met Center in Bloomington, Minnesota. Sesame Street Live is now produced as three or four separate tours, each performing a different show, with its own plot, characters, scenery, and soundtrack. Shows are performed in arenas and theatres around the world, generally working on an eight to ten month touring schedule ending in the spring and resuming in the late summer. While in the United States, Sesame Street Live is a bus and truck show, with the equipment moving by two or three trucks and the personnel travelling by bus. (This is contrasted with a show that travels by rail, such as the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus.) Outside of the United States, air cargo and sea containers are used.
History
Vee Corporation was started in March 1980 from an idea by founder Vincent Egan to produce a live character show just for Sesame Street. He based it on his time working for the Ice Follies which had a segment with those Muppets. Egan approached Jim Henson's company and Children's Television Workshop, who were interested. With outside funding, Vee was able to sign a licensing agreement with the Children's Television Workshop for the characters.
The first Sesame Street Live show opened in September 1980 at the Metropolitan Sports Center in Bloomington, Minnesota, for a five-day run. That show was successful. The following shows in five locations had lackluster attendance costing VEE the profits made in Bloomington. Egan figured that the marketing material was confusing people in those markets as what type of show was not specified. He overhauled the script and marketing while getting his creditors to wait for payments. That Christmas, the show went on to play for four weeks at Madison Square Garden's 4,000-seat Felt Forum in New York City before an audience of 100,000 people.
VEE quickly ramped up to two different shows for the 1981 to 1982 season then added a third Australia show in 1982 to 1983. From the 1983–1984 season until the 1988–1989 season there were only two Sesame Street Live shows on tour.
On April 1, 2015, Blue Star Media, LLC purchased VEE Corporation with Egan continuing on as a consultant and later that year was renamed VStar Entertainment Group. In November 2016, Sesame Workshop announced an agreement with Feld Entertainment for a new Sesame Street Live show thus ending Vstar's arena version in July 2017. But the company continued other Sesame Street shows at various locations plus the United Service Organizations tour while still providing costumes.
Productions
In order to keep the show running annually in the same cities, new plot lines are created and rotated through the tour. Because the target audience changes as children grow up, shows are often removed from the rotation for a few years, then return with some modifications.
Vee Corporation
Vee Corporation (1980–2015) In order of their creation, the Sesame Street Live shows have been:
VStar Entertainment Group (2015-July 2017)
Feld Entertainment
(July 2017-)