The Millennium Show is a live aerial and acrobatic performance on an epic scale.  It fills the Dome with colour, light and thrilling action.  The show tells the timeless, dramatic tale of Skyboy - a boy of dreams, and Sophia - a girl of action, who are driven apart before being reunited. It portrays a family divided by conflict and by the changes in their worlds, with each generation experiencing the passing of its age. This contemporary fable runs for 30 minutes and is performed up to five times every day in the vast central arena the size of Trafalgar Square at the heart of the Dome. 

The Show is billed as the shared experience at the heart of the Dome.  Every visitor gets to see it as part of their entrance ticket.  Audiences of up to 15,000 at a time react with amazement, exhilaration and sheer disbelief at the ground-breaking and breath-taking aerial stunts taking place 45m (150ft) above their heads.

The Pre-Show
A 20-minute pre-show entertains the audience as they enter the arena.  Strange grub-like rainbow creatures glide into the arena closely followed by towering stilt people, shaggy straw-men and pearly queens.  As performers mingle with the gradually growing audience they tease, stare, play and entertain.  They move among the audiences distracting and amusing, creating moments to delight and amaze and enabling the arena to fill up before the show actually begins. 

The Characters
Theo - a father who loved the earth and everything that grew from it.
Beth - a mother who could foresee the future and tried to mediate until her family was torn apart by defiance and deceit.
Ion - a son who loved machines, taming the fire that destroys his father.
Sophia - a daughter who dared defy her family and fell in love with an outsider.
And:
Skyboy - an outsider whose dreams turned from mischief and seduction to rebellion and love for Sophia.

The Story
The show leaps into action with an energetic celebration of the two peoples - the Earth people and the Sky people - that inhabit a mythic world.  We see Skyboy and earth girl Sophia meet, play and flirt.  Sophia tries to fly with Skyboy - to her father’s disapproval.  Their world is destroyed by a violent storm that devastates Beth and Theo’s way of life.   
Theo’s son Ion assumes his father’s power.  He creates a huge tower to protect his people.  But the tower, an oppressive symbol of industrialisation, gradually enslaves the Sky people.  The Sky people revolt, overcome their oppressors and bring about the destruction of Ion and his Tower.  Everyone runs away in fear.
Only Skyboy remains, searching for his love in the ruins.  They find each other and Sophia encourages him to fly once again.  As he gently lifts her, she discovers her own freedom to fly and they perform a passionate love duet high above the audience.   The two lovers are joined by the newly-liberated Earth and Sky people, who work together with the lovers to launch their child on its journey towards the unknown future.

The Spectacle
The Show fills the Dome’s airspace with moving structures. They include three 19m long aluminium mobiles which fly in the air, and a 24m high Tower of Babel encircled by perilous walkways from which abseilers jump.

The Millennium Company
The Millennium Company consists of 162 performers in two casts, drawn from all over the UK.  More than 90 of the performers were trained in aerial skills such as trapeze, bungee and abseiling on courses set up by NMEC and The Circus Space during 1998-9.

The Music
The music for the show was created by Peter Gabriel, drawing on references from traditional British folk music, as well as the cultural origins of contemporary British culture.  It layers Asian, African, Middle Eastern, Australian and Latin elements into a contemporary British drum and bass tapestry, mixing 12th century hurdy-gurdys,  didgeridoos, the pulsing rhythms of the Dhol Foundation and the nostalgic brass of the Black Dyke Mills Band.

Comment from Mark Fisher
The cost of the show (approximately £30m) failure of the Dome to attract the much hyped estimate of 12m visitors led to a lot of negative comment.  The reality should have been so different.  To attract over 6m visitors in one year from a standing start to an attraction in the derelict suburbs of east London that was only accessible by public transport (thank you, John Prescott for that fatuous example of brainless wishful thinking) was an unprecedented triumph. 

The budget for the Millennium Show - which included both a mind-boggling list of prior works and all production and operating costs for the entire show covering a period of three years and 999 performances - amounted to less than £5 per head, per visitor to the Dome. 70% of the cost was day-to-day running, cast and personnel.  The capital cost for the technical equipment and scenery for the show compared favourably with that of a tour such as Popmart.  The show created a lasting educational legacy.  More than 90 of the performers were trained in aerial skills such as trapeze, bungee and abseiling on courses set up by NMEC and The Circus Space during 1998-9.  Many of these performers went on to successful careers in physical theatre, working in the USA, Europe and the UK.