The Flying Fools make a splash at The Calgary Stampede

From the ground, the Flying Fools High Dive Show is built to stop guests in their tracks. But from the top of the platform, 80 feet above a pool that suddenly looks impossibly small, it's something else entirely.

Back at the Calgary Stampede for the first time since 2016, the Flying Fools High Dive Show is taking over BMO Plaza as one of the newest additions to this year’s entertainment lineup. Throughout the afternoon, cheers from the crowd can be heard across Stampede Park as the Flying Fools pack comedy, athleticism and suspense into a fast-paced 20-minute performance.

With synchronized dives, fire stunts and an 80-foot plunge into the three-metre-deep pool below, the show is designed for families and thrill-seekers alike.

“People can’t believe we climb up all the way to 80 feet,” said Yves Milord, owner of Milord Entertainment who operates the show. “At the end of the day, it’s only a 20-minute show, but people will come back again and again because they love it so much.”

Milord, a former member of the Canadian trampoline team, stumbled into a career as a high diver almost by accident. While competing at the 1981 American Trampoline Championship in New Jersey, he came across a high dive show at the amusement park hosting the event. After watching the act, Milord was asked to audition and was offered a job on the spot.

“I had never seen a high dive show before,” Milord said. “They asked me if I wanted to audition, and I said, ‘Well, why not?’”

Later that year, after competing at the World Trampoline Championship, Milord joined the act at a state fair in Columbus, Ohio. It was his first time high diving — and by day two, he was jumping from 80 feet.

Since founding Milord Entertainment in 1990, he has built shows around more than technical ability. While the dives are the draw, Milord said the personality of the performers is just as important as their athleticism.

“I want top-notch acrobats,” Milord said. “But they need to have good stage presence. They need to be fun to be with, they need to mingle with the audience.”

That mix of skill and showmanship is reflected in the Flying Fools cast, whose backgrounds range from competitive diving to trampoline, parkour and live stunt performance.

For Calgary-born diver Luke Ross, performing at Stampede is also a homecoming. Ross trained locally at what is now MNP Community & Sport Centre and first connected with Milord during a previous Stampede appearance. This year, his children will also get to see him perform for the first time.

Catherine Delisle, who has been performing with the show since 2012, also comes from a competitive diving background. For her, the best part of the job is still the reaction from the crowd.

“Meeting new people, travelling, going new places, just hearing the people reacting to our shows — it just never gets old,” Delisle said.

For Jared Nahulu, the route to the 80-foot platform looked a little different. With 12 years of parkour experience, Nahulu was recruited into tank dive shows while working at a Mexican restaurant in Denver alongside fellow cast member Jonathan Brouillette. Now, after two seasons with the Flying Fools, Nahulu is preparing to join Cirque du Soleil for training ahead of a new show and North American tour.

Brouillette, who grew up as a "trampoline kid" in Nebraska before moving into diving, said performing at the Stampede has been unlike anything he has experienced before. "This is probably the biggest crowd I've performed for," he said.

After more than four decades in the air, Milord still sees each part of the show as having its own “wow effect” — from the fire stunt to the final climb up the 80-foot platform, where the pool below looks like a “bowl of cereal that you dive into.” And for the performers, that reaction from the crowd is the reward.