Walking With Dinosaurs

Walking with Dinosaurs the arena spectacular stomped into Edmonton for its third tour. The show has now been seen world wide by over eight million people and has visited 217 cities. The show is really something else and worth seeing. Every thought you have ever had of a dinosaur has been captured by the creators. The movements of creature’s eyes, baby dinosaurs and the rock and plant life were brought back to life by Alex Hale, a dinosaur driver. “It’s great fun, I wear a head set and wait for the cues from the puppeteer who is up above the floor controlling the movement.”

When people who work on the show every day are having a great time, it tells you that the show is really fantastic. The show contains 20 dinosaurs, nine drivable ones that look more realistic then ever. I was lucky enough to see the stars of this show up close and personal in the morning during their testing. I was blown away at the small details. The skin looked exactly how you would picture a dinosaurs skin to look. The teeth looked razor sharp, but the movement of the eyes has to my favourite.

At one point, the set up crew walked past the large T-Rex and the puppeteer wanted to show off and had him focus on the man passing. The large creature opened his mouth as if he was going to take a bite. I was so happy that my cameraman was rolling and caught that moment, it was really something amazing to see. Eight year veteran puppeteer Brian Parker told me, “It actually takes three people to operate one of the driveable dinosaurs, one person in the bottom driving, and two puppeteers.” This just goes to show the extensive amount of time and work that have been put into these amazing robots. Who doesn’t love or find dinosaurs extremely interesting? I highly recommend this show to anyone of any age.