This year, Cirque du Mac 9.0 will be held on Friday night of the Expo, with that being Friday, January 27, 2012. Each year it’s at Cirque du Mac where the Macworld All-Star Band plays, a band made up of some of the leading personalities in our community including Paul Kent, Chris Breen, Bob LeVitus, Chuck LaTournous, Bryan Chaffin, Duane Straub and, yes, me, Dave Hamilton. In addition to the band playing, we’ll have a trapeze artist perform, face painters, henna tattoo artists, and again a Videator-powered light show from none other than Videator’s (and Twittelator’s) author, Andrew Stone and his team.

Hosted by The Mac Obsever and BackBeat Media, Cirque du Mac 9.0 would not be possible without our great sponsors. This year’s sponsor list sees some long-standing favorites returning as well as some welcome newcomers. These sponsors grok the fact that you want to leave the trade-show floor vibe behind and party, and for that they should all be especially thanked. Visit them. Praise them. Support them. Know them. They are:

As usual Cirque du Mac is invite-only and beginning today invitations will be going out to the chosen few. At some point over the coming weeks, though, we’ll be giving away at least 10 pairs of tickets for you, the readers that make what we do here at TMO possible. We’ll give away some right here on the site, some to lucky listeners of our Mac Geek Gab podcast, and some on Twitter and Facebook. Make sure you “Like” TMO over on FaceBook and follow TMO on Twitter to increase your chances of winning.

We look forward to seeing — and partying with you — there.