Michael Flatley has been granted an injunction by the High Court in Belfast to allow the Lord of the Dance 30th-anniversary show to be staged in Dublin later this week.
Earlier on Tuesday a solicitor for Switzer Consulting Ltd, which was to run the show, said it had been called off with “immediate effect”.
Describing the company as the “owner of the show and the intellectual property rights”, the statement said the decision “has not been taken lightly”.
“Switzer fully recognises and regrets the disappointment this will cause to fans and ticket holders who were looking forward to the performance.”
It blamed “an ongoing commercial and legal dispute concerning the operation of the show, which could not be resolved in the time frame available”.
A spokesman for Flatley, who developed the show, subsequently described the cancellation as “outrageous” and insisted the performance would go on.
Flatley then sought an emergency hearing at the High Court in Belfast and, shortly before 4pm, he was granted the injunction.
The court has restrained Switzer or anyone acting on its behalf “from interfering with, seeking to obstruct, issuing press statements or public communications or otherwise or in any way whatsoever seeking to prevent [Flatley] from making use of the intellectual property and rights to Lord of the Dance to include, in particular, seeking to prevent or obstruct the defendant from running/operating the Lord of the Dance show in Dublin on Thursday, February 5th, 2026″.
The order also requires Switzer to “deliver up to [Flatley] all the set and associated materials and costumes forthwith”.
In a statement, Flatley said he welcomed the decision of the Belfast High Court to grant the injunction “to stop Switzer Consulting Limited from further disrupting my shows”.
He said his “service agreement with Switzer Consulting Limited was terminated yesterday afternoon. It is shocking that Switzer, a company I own, would then, without my knowledge and in spite, issue a statement today to try to further disrupt matters”.
He said the “outrageousness of this is compounded by the fact Switzer had been in court three hours before the statement was issued and a date for a full hearing was set for April next”.
“Our relationship has been validly ended and €0.5 million has been lodged in a solicitor’s account pending the hearing in two months’ time. It is unacceptable that Switzer would then issue a statement and I was left no choice but to injunct them from any such further interventions to ensure my shows go ahead from this Thursday. The show must go on and it will go on.”
It is the latest twist in a saga which, it was thought, had come to an end last Thursday, when a legal order blocking Flatley from engaging with the Lord of the Dance production was overturned by a court in Belfast.
Switzer Consulting had taken the action in a civil case against the choreographer and dancer for alleged breach of contract, relating to an agreement the firm says was reached to allow it to run the dance shows.
The Dublin show at the 3Arena is being seen as a showcase for US bookers, many of whom are planning to travel to Ireland to see the performance before deciding whether they want to bring it to US cities in the coming months.
