Busch Gardens bringing back live, indoor shows next month

Busch Gardens Tampa Bay theme park will reintroduce live, indoor shows to its entertainment lineup in late May, including an ice-skating production, the company announced Thursday.

Ice show “Turn It Up” and a new acrobatic show called “Cirque Electric” will open at the park May 28, the Friday before Memorial Day.

The shows’ theaters will operate under several pandemic-ready modifications. They will have limited capacity, and audience members will be spread out. Entering and exiting procedures for visitors will be staggered. Face coverings will be worn by all visitors and performers at all times. Eating and drinking will not be allowed in the theaters. Busch Gardens will conduct “extensive sanitation” of all seats between shows, the park said.

Productions have been dark since Busch Gardens, owned by Orlando-based SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment, reopened in June after a two-month shutdown in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

“Turn It Up” will be staged multiple times daily, Thursdays through Mondays, at the Moroccan Palace Theater. “Cirque Electric,” an acrobatic stunt show, will show on the Stanleyville Theater stage multiples times Fridays through Mondays.

SeaWorld Orlando has continued several animal-driven shows since reopening last June. Some outdoor shows, including ones featuring “Blue Brothers” characters and the “Beat Builders” percussion group, resumed in June at Universal Studios.

Many live-entertainment shows at Walt Disney World have not returned, although Disney has said that a modified version of “Festival of the Lion King,” an indoor show at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, will be staged this summer.