Las Vegas Production

SenorSwanky wrote:Yeah, WTF? There's gotta be a story behind the decision to destroy the set.

I think the decision to destroy the set was based on three factors:

1) There's probably already at least one full set of Phantom in storage from the US touring productions that have now closed.

2) With the new US Tour coming and being redesigned, they arguably wouldn't need another set. Furthermore, even if the new tour were to (miraculously) revert to the original production design, the scale of the Vegas sets might have been a bit larger than the traditional sets and might not fit in more conventionally-sized venues.

3) Copyright. At least for the Proscenium, it's likely that BASE and The Venetian did not have the licensing from RUG to keep the copyright design of the Proscenium arch in use, particularly because it incorporates designs created by Maria Bjornson. The Chandelier was probably less of an issue because it was based on the design of the chandelier in the Paris Opera House, and because it could be used as a functional fixture rather than an ornamental one.

Still, it's a shame that so many of the other set pieces were destroyed. Some were rescued, but as others have expressed, not enough.

~Madame~

The first two are obvious, yeah, but I think the third might've been key. Because other producers were brought in, there may have been an issue with financial stakes that prevented them from doing an auction. Though if they were all on board and did a charity auction, that wouldn't really have been an issue...except when it came to tax write-offs, I guess.

All that and the fact that the Venetian production was custom-built for that theatre. It wasn't meant to tour, and it likely would have had to be considerably retrofitted to go anywhere else (no plans to do so anyway). So it made very little sense to keep it. There's no sentimental value to these things for the folks making the decision. So it's easy to sit there and be shocked and saddened, but at the end of the day, it's just business. A charity auction would have been nice, but the where would it have been held? What would the cost to rent the space be? What would it cost to store all those pieces until the auction? How many manhours (and money) would have been put into organizing it and putting it on? All things to be considered. Evidently it was way more cost efficient and safer copyright wise to destroy most of it. Sad for some.

I wonder if it's because they didn't want people digging around in the trash.

I still wanna maintain that auctioning some of the stuff off for charity would have been the best way out of it:

1. They've done it elsewhere without any copyright issues;
2. It would have raised a LOT of money for a good cause, and
3. I would not have felt so disrespectful as it did.

I know some of it had to be done. But for example trashing the Phantom's organ? It just didn't make any sense. Anyhow, glad the costumes and the dummy clothes are well cared for.