March 31, 2024 was the last show of Turn it Up at Busch Gardens Tampa Bay. This long running show opened on May 26, 2017 and transitioned to the “Remix” version on January 22, 2023. It played in the beautiful and nicely air conditioned Moroccan Theater displaying singles, pairs and group ice skating routines. The park teased the closing the last couple of weeks on social media, but it was pretty obvious that although this particular show was going away that ice skating in the park was not. In the final performance it was announced that Turn it Up would be replaced with a new show called Rhythm of Nature. (thanks to @ThemePark_Dan for the pic and info)

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Busch Gardens Tampa Bay (@buschgardens)

There’s currently no word on an opening date for Rhythm of Nature, but if we use history as our guide there was about a 90 day gap between Turn it Up and Turn it Up Remix. However, this gap also spanned over the Christmas holiday show, so it’ll probably be less than that. I’d imagine the park would want this going again before the hot summer days as the show can offer welcome relief from rain or a hot and humid summer afternoon. Hopefully we see something by Memorial Day?

I remember seeing this show years ago for the first time and being blown away by the quality of entertainment for a theme park show. Over the years even though we knew that routines it was still something we’d want to see every trip. I’ve also learned more about the show and its tremendous cast through things like the First Drop Podcast series the park does. The show essentially has no spoken words (other than music), so you may not realize that some of the performers are decorated athletes. One great example is Juliana Cannarozzo, who won two gold metals in international skating competitions as a junior.

In one of the Instagram videos about the closing the cast mentioned that one of their favorite memories was seeing kids who knew the routines dancing in the aisles during the show. My favorite memory is similar, but it’s the “dancing usher” at the show. I only saw this guy once, but he was an absolute highlight dancing to every song in the show! (longer version of video below with dancing kid too)

Turn it Up was awesome and although it’s always sad to see a show go, I’m excited for what’s coming. The park is animal themed of course, so it will be interesting to see if they go with more of a jungle or animal themes and movements with Rhythm of Nature. Turn it Up was wonderful high energy fun, but not much about it screamed the mission of Busch Gardens. My mind goes to sort of a Lion King on Ice (without the trademark violations) with Rhythm of Nature and that could be wonderful!