Stephanie McMahon promises different production look from next week

With less than a week to go to return touring in front of fans, WWE Chief Brand Office Stephanie McMahon talked with Variety about the plans the company has when crowds finally return.

McMahon said that they cannot wait to get back together with their fans and come back “home” where they belong. She said that even though they never missed a television taping and continued producing shows, there was still a huge component missing without having fans physically in attendance.

Stephanie also discussed how WWE will switch things up with the first Smackdown on Friday live in Houston in front of a packed audience.

“In the ThunderDome, we were able to experiment with different types of technology. And we needed to over-deliver for our partners and our fans watching at home. But now we have the ability to apply all of those learnings to the live event experience with our fans,” McMahon told Variety. “So from a production and storytelling standpoint, it will look and feel different. We’re going to have a new set design, a new presentation of our talents, different locations, and arena setups.”

There will also be the utilization of augmented reality even more in a way that they’ve never done before. “We experimented with it a lot during ThunderDome, but it is now going to be incorporated into our talent entrances. There’s also going to be animated graphics. It’s going to be so exciting and so different than anything we’ve done before.”

WWE’s ticket sales have been a mixed bag so far with some markets doing good and other markets doing worse than pre-COVID.