More on Criss Angel's No. 1 Claims

As I wrote yesterday, illusionist Criss Angel told Norm Clarke the other day that he had the No. 1 show in Vegas, the No. 1 Cirque du Soleil show in Vegas and the No. 1 show on television. I found each of these notions dubious for different reasons. Richard Abowitz also scratched his head.

Today I spoke to Cirque spokeswoman Anita Nelving for an explanation. She acknowledged there's no way for anyone to know who has the No. 1 show in Vegas since nobody shares their sales figures. Likewise, she agreed the No. 1 show on TV thing was out there.

As for the No. 1 Cirque show in Vegas, she says that Criss does have access to the internal numbers and he is correct inasmuch as the show is selling the most tickets on a daily basis than the others. She also said that is to be expected, seeing how it is brand new and it hasn't officially opened yet. After our phone call, Nelving sent me this statement:

"With a $5 million advance, we are very happy with sales for CRISS ANGEL Believe. Each show has been sold out to date. In terms of daily sales, currently Believe is averaging higher or equal to our other top-selling productions in Las Vegas."

And I still think that the most objective measure is TicketNews.Com, which I referenced yesterday. But that, too, comes with a caveat. According an email from Justin Robert Young of the iTricks Criss Angel Podcast, Believe was No. 3, behind Bette and Cher, a few weeks ago at TicketNews. That, too, makes it the No. 1 Cirque show at least for that moment.

Make of it what you will. It doesn't really matter at this stage. Let's regroup in six months and then we might have a barometer of how the show is doing.