WWE is going to be doing things production-wise they could never otherwise do when they move TV operations to the Amway Center in Orlando, FL on Friday.
This according to WWE executive vice president of television production Kevin Dunn who spoke with Sports Illustrated following the company’s announcement of the ThunderDome viewing experience.
“We can now do things production-wise that we could never otherwise do,” Dunn said. “We’re flying drones in the arena, we are putting a roof inside the Amway Center, and we’ll be able to project content onto the roof. So when a big star like Drew McIntyre comes down to the ring, the whole arena will turn into his content with lasers, pyro, smoke, projections on the top of the building and on the floor. It will be a big, beautiful entrance, better than WrestleMania.”
Dunn confirmed something we have reported several times here at WrestlingNews.com, in that virtual fans will be used, similar to what the NBA is doing.
“Like the NBA, we’re doing virtual fans, but we’re also creating an arena-type atmosphere,” he said. “We won’t have a flat board, we’ll have rows and rows and rows of fans. We’ll have almost 1,000 LED boards, and it will recreate the arena experience you’re used to seeing with WWE. The atmosphere will be night and day from the Performance Center. This is going to let us have a WrestleMania-level production value, and that’s what our audience expects from us. We are also going to put arena audio into the broadcast, similar to baseball, but our audio will be mixed with the virtual fans. So when fans start chants, we’ll hear them.”
Dunn admitted the shows without fans “haven’t been what we’d like them to be” and thanked fans for sticking with them.
You can read Dunn’s full interview with Sports Illustrated at this link.
Leave a Reply