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"Walking With Dinosaurs" Live Show

jhuntington

Thinker
jhuntington
Joined
Jan 10, 2006
Messages
151
Location
Brooklyn
When a former student of mine told me he was on the road crew for this show, I looked at the title and groaned. Geez, did my student turn into a fundie and is this a creationist extravaganza?

Thankfully, he didn't, and it's not. It's actually a pretty amazing display of show engineering, and they must have used the words "evolution" and "natural selection" about 10,000 times.

The dinosaurs are enormous and the movements are great. My former student oversees all the wireless transmissions on the show, which are extensive. Each dinosaur is operated by a driver at the base, and then 2-3 offstage puppeteers who control all the movement via remote control. Some of the dino's are enormous, just clearing the massive lighting/sound rig.

The story is OK, but it's really about the spectacle and the scale.

The night I saw it, at the penultimate moment when the T Rex is supposed to come out, things got a bit slow, and the music ran out, and it was obvious something went wrong. Then the funniest text message I've ever gotten came in on my phone from my former student backstage: "T Rex Broke" :-) I showed the text to my friend and we had a good laugh. Another text came in shortly after to say the T Rex's blowers had failed (the dino's have inflatable bodies around a really sophisticated hydraulically driven frame), so it looked a bit saggy when it made its big entrance. The excitement of a live show!

I don't know what it cost (my tickets said $0) but if it's affordable, take the kids and go see it. http://www.dinosaurlive.com/

It's loading out of the NYC area as I write this, but it's on tour for a few weeks. Here's the current tour dates from Pollstar, more will apparently be announced soon:

Wed 10/10/07 Winston-Salem, NC Lawrence Joel Complex
Thu 10/11/07 Winston-Salem, NC Lawrence Joel Complex
Fri 10/12/07 Winston-Salem, NC Lawrence Joel Complex
Sat 10/13/07 Winston-Salem, NC Lawrence Joel Complex
Sun 10/14/07 Winston-Salem, NC Lawrence Joel Complex
Wed 10/17/07 Nashville, TN Sommet Center
Thu 10/18/07 Nashville, TN Sommet Center
Fri 10/19/07 Nashville, TN Sommet Center
Sat 10/20/07 Nashville, TN Sommet Center
Sun 10/21/07 Nashville, TN Sommet Center
Thu 10/25/07 Dallas, TX American Airlines Center
Fri 10/26/07 Dallas, TX American Airlines Center
Sat 10/27/07 Dallas, TX American Airlines Center
Sun 10/28/07 Dallas, TX American Airlines Center
Wed 11/07/07 North Little Rock, AR Alltel Arena
Thu 11/08/07 North Little Rock, AR Alltel Arena
Fri 11/09/07 North Little Rock, AR Alltel Arena
Sat 11/10/07 North Little Rock, AR Alltel Arena
Sun 11/11/07 North Little Rock, AR Alltel Arena
Wed 11/14/07 Detroit, MI Cobo Arena
Thu 11/15/07 Detroit, MI Cobo Arena
Fri 11/16/07 Detroit, MI Cobo Arena
Sat 11/17/07 Detroit, MI Cobo Arena
Mon 11/26/07 Winnipeg, MB MTS Centre
Tue 11/27/07 Winnipeg, MB MTS Centre
Wed 11/28/07 Winnipeg, MB MTS Centre
Thu 11/29/07 Winnipeg, MB MTS Centre
Fri 11/30/07 Winnipeg, MB MTS Centre
Sat 12/01/07 Winnipeg, MB MTS Centre
Sun 12/02/07 Winnipeg, MB MTS Centre
Wed 12/05/07 Milwaukee, WI Bradley Center
Thu 12/06/07 Milwaukee, WI Bradley Center
Fri 12/07/07 Milwaukee, WI Bradley Center
Sat 12/08/07 Milwaukee, WI Bradley Center
Sun 12/09/07 Milwaukee, WI Bradley Center
Wed 12/12/07 Green Bay, WI Resch Center
Thu 12/13/07 Green Bay, WI Resch Center
Fri 12/14/07 Green Bay, WI Resch Center
Sat 12/15/07 Green Bay, WI Resch Center
Sun 12/16/07 Green Bay, WI Resch Center
Wed 12/26/07 San Jose, CA HP Pavilion At San Jose
Thu 12/27/07 San Jose, CA HP Pavilion At San Jose
Fri 12/28/07 San Jose, CA HP Pavilion At San Jose
Sat 12/29/07 San Jose, CA HP Pavilion At San Jose




John
 
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It's leaving the NY area? That means I missed it when it was nearby :(
It sounds really cool.
 
I actually bought tickets as soon as they were available on pre-sale.

We're going November 30th!!

But, gee, I hope the T. Rex has all the "kinks" ironed out by then! *lol*
 
I scoffed somewhat at this in the other thread about it, but came across some moderately impressive video on Youtube;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_9GnP-lhaY

The smaller dinosaurs are more convincing than the bigger ones with the odd-looking rolling armature thingies, but couldn't they have found some less-obtrusive tights?!
 
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