Cirque du Soleil Performance Abruptly Ends When Equipment Malfunctions, Spraying Crowd With Oil

The opening night for Cirque du Soleil's VOLTA show at Maymoor Park in Redmond, Washington Friday night was cancelled after the show suffered a mechanical issue with equipment that sprayed the audience with oil.

Witnesses told KOMO that a hydraulic fluid tank used to raise a platform appeared to explode 10 minutes into the show. At first, audience members thought it was water being sprayed and part of the show. They soon realized it was not.

The fire department was called to the venue at around 8:45 p.m. Ladders were needed to help performers get down from the platform and no one was hurt in the incident.

King County sheriff's spokeswoman Sgt. Cynthia Sampson told the Seattle Times that there was "nothing nefarious" about the incident. "It was just an industrial issue with a piece of machinery," she said.

"All of a sudden the stuff started spraying everybody and they kind of looked around thinking it's like water," Chase Costello, who sat in the front row, told KOMO. "Then we were like wait a second, this is oil."

Jonathan Fay, who was sitting four rows from the stage, said it looked like a huge "steam effect."

"It went out into the audience and went pretty far back, dozens of rows. The first one was almost like vapor and then there was a spray that looked like water at first," Fay told the Times.

Then, stage hands came out and kept slipping on the stage. Fay said it looked like they were "ice skating."

A voice came over the loudspeaker to tell the audience that the show was at first being delayed, then it was cancelled. A pamphlet on how to get refunds was then handed out to guests. Those who paid with a credit card were automatically reimbursed.

"Up until that point it was absolutely spectacular; I was looking forward to seeing the rest of the show and will definitely come back," Fay told the Times.

VOLTA is Cirque du Soleil's touring show, and is scheduled to continue performances in Redmond through Nov. 4. Its theme centers on extreme sports, and includes BMX bikers, acrobats on ladders, rope skipping artists and a "shape diving" sequence that mixes hip hop, breakdancing and acrobatics.

In an interview with GeekWire, Craig Price, Cirque's head of automation, said every part of the show is "pre-programed."

"We have safe edges installed on the lifts, so if someone gets their foot caught, then everything stops," Price explained.

Photo credit: Bastiaan Slabbers/NurPhoto via Getty Images