Melco Resorts & Entertainment is aiming to relaunch its once highly popular Macau resident show, The House of Dancing Water, in late 2024, the company revealed overnight.
The long-running production, which debuted in September 2010, had “temporarily” closed down in June 2020 with Melco explaining at the time that the show would be “re-imagined” during an enforced COVID break. The company had planned to reopen in early 2021 but this never unfolded. As reported by IAG, Melco was instead forced to let go of 137 performers and Macau blue card holders from late 2020 when it became apparent that the pandemic was ongoing.
While Melco has long stated that The House of Dancing Water would eventually return, it finally provided some insight into the timeline during its 3Q23 earnings call overnight with Chief Operating Officer – Macau Resorts, David Sisk revealing relaunch would be “probably late in the fourth quarter of 2024.
“We’re just now going through the process of the remount,” Sisk explained. “We’ve been doing a lot of work on the House of Dancing Water theater to get it up and ready. We just started doing our first shows there. We’re doing a production right now where we’re doing some musical things there on a weekly basis. And towards the middle of November, we’ll get back out of that and get started back on the remount for the House of Dancing Water.”
The issue of The House of Dancing Water’s return was raised in relation to a question from industry analysts about Melco’s operating expenses, currently running at around US$2.5 million per day at its Macau resorts.
Melco said it expects those expenses to rise to US$2.6 million in Q4 but more so once The House of Dancing Water reopens next year.
“And that would add about 0.1 per day when that happens,” said Melco’s Executive Vice President and CFO, Geoffrey Davis.
Sisk added, “As you look at some of the nongaming attractions and amenities that we have, including House of Dancing Water coming back, we have started to advertise a little bit more in market more in Hong Kong and China to let people know we have these assets out there.”
Created by Italian theatre director Franco Dragone, The House of Dancing Water was seen by more than 6 million people during its decade-long run from 2010 to 2020.
