Page to Stage Review - Cirque Du Soleil Backstage Tour

Recently we had the opportunity to do the Page to Stage tour at Cirque Du Soleil in Disney Springs, and I’m so excited to share all the details with you.

The Page to Stage tour is part of the VIP package where you get to watch the show, Drawn to Life, and afterwards you are taken backstage to learn all about how the show came together. There is even an opportunity to meet some of the performers!

View of the stage from the seats reserved for VIP tour.

For the show portion of this tour, they have two rows, H and a portion of G, in section 104 reserved for the VIP guests. There are typically only 11 spots available each night for this tour so it is a fairly intimate experience. The tour only occurs once per night and is the last show of the day, so Wednesday through Saturday it will be the 8:00 show, and Sundays it is the 4:00 show. The night we went it was $285/person for this VIP experience.

We arrived to the theater around 7:00, we had read to arrive about an hour prior to showtime, but that’s all the information we received. One thing I think they could have done better is to give more information on where to go when you arrive for the tour. There were no signs and we couldn’t find anything online about where we were supposed to check in.

We did end up going to the ticket window to inquire, and they informed us that a guide would be out at the base of the stairs in front of the ticket window around 7:15 with a small sign where we could get checked in.

Sure enough a bit after 7:15 the guide arrived and we were able to get our lanyards for the tour and our merchandise vouchers. We had about 10 minutes at that point to go to the store to use them, otherwise we would have to come back another day since the store was closed after the show.

Now the information that we had received noted that we would get early entry to the theater as part of the tour. This was not accurate. We were not brought in before anyone else and had to wait until they dropped the ropes for everyone to actually go upstairs and scan our tickets to get into the theater. This part was a bit confusing since our tour guide just disappeared after giving us our lanyards, and us and the other groups in the tour were left standing around wondering if we should be going someone else for our noted early entry.

So that part was definitely frustrating. Perhaps it is something they used to offer but stopped and forgot to remove from the VIP tour information. Either way, we were a bit worried about the tour after this start, but thankfully this was the only low point, the experience got much better once we actually got into the tour portion.

Once we made it to the top of the stairs and scanned our tickets in, we headed into the theater to find our seats. They were super easy to find, but they do have ushers throughout the theater to help you locate your seats if you need assistance.

After getting settled in, I headed to the concession stand to grab some water and wine. Now another item that was promised but was not actually included was the VIP only concession line. The normal lines were very long, and while there was a sign for VIP tour on one end of the counter, when I went there I was told they don’t do that anymore, so I had to wait in the normal line which took almost 20 minutes to get through. I will admit, at this point I was pretty disappointed with this VIP experience, and clearly they need to update the information they have on it since this whole pre-show process is completely inaccurate.

Water and wine in hand I headed back to our seats just in time for the show to start.

The show is amazingly well done, the last time we had been in that theater was for the previous show, La Nouba, so we were so excited to see this new one and ended up loving it!

Our guide had told us while checking in, that after the show to wait at our seats and he would come collect for the tour. He also made a point that if we had to use the bathroom to use it early since there was no opportunity to use one during the tour.

Once the show ended our guide arrived and we stood around chatting for a bit to let the theater clear out.

Finally, it was time to go backstage. One cool thing about this tour, is even though you are backstage, photos and videos are fully allowed! I believe this is the only location in Disney where you can take backstage photos.

The tour starts by going downstairs to the substage level. We did end up going down quite a few stairs for this, our guide did verify prior to starting that we were all ok with the stairs, they do have an elevator that we used later in the tour as well.

Our first stop was the warm-up room where two of the performers were waiting to meet with us and for a Q&A session. They had some props in here like the unicycles as well.

It was really great to ask them questions and hear the perspective from the performers. A lot of questions asked were about their backgrounds, how they got into it, the difference between gymnastics and acrobatics, and also about how they prepare for the show. The thing that surprised me the most is that each performer is responsible for their own makeup! Some of them take hours to get on!

After the questions we were able to get pictures with the performers as well.

Our next stop was the area directly below the stage where we got to see various set pieces and the big lifts used to get them to stage level. The guide gave a ton of information here about the history of the theater and the changes that were made to update the show from La Nouba to Drawn to Life. He also talked a lot about the show and the inspirations behind it.

The underside of the stage

Being able to see the set pieces up close was probably one of my favorite things. The amount of detail was surprising considering most would be hard to see from the audience.

We spent quite a bit of time in this area, there were a number of set pieces down there and just fun details left from the performers.

We were welcome to ask any questions throughout the tour, and we had a great group of people on the tour with us who asked a bunch of really great questions which I think elevated the tour for us.

After leaving the area under the stage we headed back to the costuming area where we got to see them drying the costumes from the show. We weren’t allowed to enter the room, but we could peek in the door to see some of them.

As we walked backstage we passed a wall with posters of all the Cirque shows, this was pretty cool to see, I have seen four of them now, but I didn’t realize just how many there were worldwide!

Eventually we made our way over to the signature board. This was really cool to see, and there are actually a few Hollywood stars signatures on there as well such as John Stamos, Angela Basset, and Josh Gad.

Next we got into an elevator and were brought back up to stage level. I was very surprised at how small the backstage area was up here, it is pretty narrow, and they are storing even more set pieces and costumes up here!

Those circular items hanging from the ceiling are the hoop skirts used by the unicyclists.

set pieces backstage

Probably the coolest prop/puppet that is in this backstage area is the Doodles desk. Learning about how the puppeteer actually moves and performs in it was so fascinating. It blows my mind that just a single person is controlling Doodles!

In this area we also got to peek out from behind the curtains out to the theater which was a really cool perspective. Similar to at the parks, they have tape on the ground showing where you could stand to not be in anyone’s sightline while backstage.

The Doodles puppet

Another interesting thing we learned about is the mapping technology they have for some of the costumes for projections and even spotlights. The guide pointed out the sensors on these paper costumes that are stored right behind the stage.

This is where the tour ended, it went by so fast! Our guide took us to the elevator and brought us back down to exit the theater. Before parting ways, he did hand out a Cirque pin to everyone as a parting gift. The tour wrapped up at about 10:45, so the tour is just over an hour long, although timing may vary based on the number of questions asked throughout. Our group was very curious and asked a ton of questions, so we may have gone a bit longer than other nights.

Overall, the tour is fantastic, especially if you love the theater. I would not do this just to get a “VIP” experience though. There really is nothing VIP about it, you’re paying for the tour, not a VIP experience.

Now, if this experience is a bit too pricy for you, or if it doesn’t really interest you, I definitely do recommend seeing the show at least. It is really well done and is great for families as well, there is even a part where some of the kids in the audience get to go up on stage and be part of the show which was really fun.