Exhibition
The attraction was operated by Tussaud's Group (the owner of Madame Tussauds at the time) and took up the top four floors of the newly refurbished London Pavilion building at Piccadilly Circus, London.
The exhibition was opened in 1989 by Jason Donovan and closed completely in September 2001.
Visitors walked around the exhibition wearing headphones which used infra-red technology to beam relevant audio material according to what you were looking at. The centrepiece of the exhibition was a 'live' show performed by a series of lifelike animatronic figures, looking at the history of Rock music from 1950 to the present day. The audience sat in an auditorium which rotated to view the various stages.
The wax figures that made up the exhibition can take up to six months to create at a cost of around £30,000. The animatronic figures can take up to a year and cost £100,000 each. The control systems for the exhibition were provided by Electrosonic Ltd.
Many of the performers featured in the exhibition donated their own clothes.
Among the waxworks/exhibits featured were:
- The Jacksons (including Michael Jackson)
- VIP area featuring Elvis Presley and Bono (U2)
- Madonna video shoot
- Janet Jackson
- Memorabilia corridor
- 1960s London Street scene with rock memorabilia
- Wall of Hands (featuring palm casts of rock musicians)
- Bob Marley
- Aretha Franklin
- Bon Jovi
- Cliff Richard
- David Bowie
- Elton John (including one of his stage costumes from 1973)
- Jarvis Cocker
- Billy Idol
- Gary Barlow
- Meat Loaf
- The Rolling Stones
- Five
- George Michael
- Buddy Holly
- The Beatles suits from the film 'A Hard Days Night'.
- Tim Rice, whose voice also provided the narration for the Hall of Fame exhibition
To celebrate the new museum, and to decorate the outside of the building, a series of Rock legend statues were installed around the London Pavilion exterior. Artists featured were Annie Lennox, Buddy Holly, David Bowie, Diana Ross, Elton John, Gary Glitter, Jimi Hendrix, Madonna, Michael Jackson and Mick Jagger.
The aging technology was given a much-needed £4 million refurbishment in its ninth year and after a short closure period, it reopened in March 1999. New parts of the attraction included a virtual reality simulation of the view from a Wembley Stadium stage, and an after-show party setup featuring Robbie Williams, The Spice Girls and Jarvis Cocker.
However, it failed to meet its income targets, and closed permanently in September 2001. The space it formerly used has now been replaced by Ripley's Believe It Or Not! museum (which opened 20 August 2008).
Tussauds Group staff blamed the closure on the strength of the pound (making London an expensive destination for the young Europeans the attraction is aimed at), and a decline in visitors, despite a reported 6 million visitors since opening in 1989. Many of the waxwork figures were redeployed at the main Madame Tussauds exhibition, and Rock Circus staff were offered posts at other Tussauds Group attractions.
Read more about this topic: Rock Circus
Famous quotes containing the word exhibition:
“A man’s thinking goes on within his consciousness in a seclusion in comparison with which any physical seclusion is an exhibition to public view.”
—Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951)
“The hardiest skeptic who has seen a horse broken, a pointer trained, or has visited a menagerie or the exhibition of the Industrious Fleas, will not deny the validity of education. “A boy,” says Plato, “is the most vicious of all beasts;” and in the same spirit the old English poet Gascoigne says, “A boy is better unborn than untaught.””
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Work, as we usually think of it, is energy expended for a further end in view; play is energy expended for its own sake, as with children’s play, or as manifestation of the end or goal of work, as in “playing” chess or the piano. Play in this sense, then, is the fulfillment of work, the exhibition of what the work has been done for.”
—Northrop Frye (1912–1991)