Midnight Underground Circus will be a carnival of sorts with a big surprise

The organizers of the Midnight Underground Circus on Friday night refuse to reveal what surprise they have in store at the stroke of midnight.

The only thing we can think that would fulfill their promise of “something to talk about” for weeks to come would be lowering Kanye West and Beck together from the ceiling.

That’s just our own weirdness talking there.

But from what we can tell about this new event, it wouldn’t be completely out of context given that Quixotic Fusion is the night’s main entertainment.

Billed as part circus, part carnival, Underground Circus comes from the same group that drew about 6,000 people to the Liberty Memorial last summer for the giant lawn party called Fiery Stick Open.

This time LiveKC is inviting the public to visit yet another venerable Kansas City institution — Municipal Auditorium.

Actually, you’ll head to the auditorium’s basement to Exhibition Hall.

The hall and surrounding mezzanine are being transformed into a grown-up version of a carnival.

This is what you’ll see and hear: Laser lights flashing, several Quixotic performers dangling in the air at the same time, DJ music pumping and adult carnival games like that ring-toss game using Boulevard beer bottles.

A master of ceremonies on stilts will walk through the crowd. (Watch closely — the guy can break dance on those things.)

“It’s going to be an overload of the senses,” said Erik Wullschleger, LiveKC director. “I want to give people something to talk about, something to share with their friends at a time of year when it’s normally cold and crappy, something to tell their family and friends about why Kansas City is kick-ass.

“That’s what LiveKC is about, our broader mission, just to make this city alive and bustling.”

This will be Quixotic’s first big event of its 10th anniversary year. Founder Anthony Magliano was quick to say yes when Wullschleger asked the group to entertain.

He knew what the group had done with the Fiery Stick Open.

“I like their role in the community, making Kansas City a more attractive place to live and work,” said Magliano. “This is an over-the-top event that they’re putting together. We’re going to go huge.”

Magliano had never seen the auditorium’s basement.

“We didn’t even know the space existed,” he said. “It’s funny because if we would have known about that space we would have tried to figure out something in there a long time ago, because we’re always trying to find new, fun existing spaces to do shows in.

“I think people are really going to be surprised. It’s going to allow us to do a big spectacle.”

Wullschleger and his crew came upon the basement a few months ago after a tour of the building. They love the auditorium and had considered using the main level. But the seating arrangement creates more of a spectator event, and that’s not what they were going for.

On that cold, snowy day their auditorium guide ushered them out of the building through the basement “and we were stopped in our tracks because it’s this plot of concrete and this beautiful mezzanine that overlooks it,” said Wullschleger.

“We were joking with the operations team that (the space is) where the clowns get dropped when the real circus comes to town. They set up tables down there and the clowns sit down there and socialize.”

Clowns would fit in at his Friday event, but they’d have to be wearing steampunk costumes instead of big feet.

Magliano described the event as a “circus re-imagined, a very contemporary approach but still inspired by vaudeville and that steampunk thinking.”

All of his Quixotic performers, about 20, will be there. From the mezzanine party-goers will be able to see the elaborate truss system the group has to install for its aerial work, some of it being seen for the first time.

“We’re hoping people leave going ‘Wow, this is one of the best events I’ve ever been to in Kansas City,’ give them something to make them walk out smiling,” said Magliano.

“But also something to laugh about because I think there’s going to be kind of a whimsical, spontaneous component about it, too. I think we have a lot of secret surprises.”

The biggest one will come at midnight. On that point, Wullschleger was doggedly mum.

“If I told you what’s going to happen, it’d be a cool event to talk about, but we hope it’s a talking point for weeks beyond,” Wullschleger said.

If he’s anything, LiveKC’s mastermind is a big tease.

“You won’t believe what’s going on,” he said.

This story was originally published February 19, 2015 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Midnight Underground Circus will be a carnival of sorts with a big surprise."