We all have that one friend who is a die-hard adrenaline junkie who loves to discover their next greatest adventure. That friend is me…
This feature is all about uncovering Lake Nona and Orlando’s greatest activities, especially if you enjoy living life on the edge!
This month, I found myself rushing through massive crowds with Andrew in Universal’s CityWalk to get to the Blue Man Group concert. This was his first time attending the show and my second.
The event began as soon as you sat down. Text scrolled across several TV screens in the theater giving shoutouts to certain audience members saying goofy things like, “Hey Rhys, we hear it’s your birthday. Everyone, let’s speak, NOT SING, speak the happy birthday song to him. Ready? GO!” To my surprise, the audience was super engaged, and pretty much the entire room erupted into speaking happy birthday. This was a super easy and clever way of keeping the audience occupied before the show began.
The lights dimmed and sounds emerged. The theater was nearly sold out. The hype and excitement in the crowd was building with anticipation. The stage screen rose, and the famous trio known as the Blue Man Group came into focus. The performance had begun.
Disclaimer: The Blue Man Group does not speak. That is part of their schtick, and it works.
The show consisted of several different skits, including making music off of PVC pipes, engaging with the audience and even bringing two guests on stage to act in the skits alongside them, creating paintings using their mouths, and incorporating technology and music, to name a few. My personal favorite was when they played on the PVC pipes. If you’ve ever been to the Orlando Science Center, they have a section dedicated to making music on PVC pipes. It’s very cool and a new-found hobby of mine (which I’ll probably never take up, honestly). Who has the time to play PVC pipes when you’re not the Blue Man Group?
One pretty significant downside to the show is that it’s the same exact skit entirely. Having seen this performance once before about four years ago, I noticed nothing had changed. This makes it less likely that an audience member would see the show again.
Andrew’s favorite skit had to be when the Blue Man Group began to toss what looked like ping pong balls to one another from across the stage, and they caught them in their mouths. The balls were filled with paint and they would spit the color onto a canvas and make a pretty cool painting, which they would give to an audience member. Every time I looked over at him, Andrew was in awe of how they were able to catch every single ping pong ball. They only made one mistake, and that was okay.
The show lasted about an hour and a half and ended with a bang. The grand finale included getting up and dancing, with streamers flowing, and giant, inflatable, glowing balls falling from the ceiling and bouncing around the studio from all sides of the audience. After the show ended, audience members could hang back outside of the studio to meet and take photos with the Blue Man Group and their band.
Florida residents can now attend the Blue Man Group performance for $49 plus tax per adult (ages 10+) and $29 plus tax per child (ages 3-9) through April 8. Universal advertises the special as Florida residents saving up to $45.
The special combination of music, art and technology, all while using no words, is unique and calls for a fun night out for the whole family. Although the performance has yet to change over the years, I still had a great time and would encourage everyone to check it out.
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