Stephanie McMahon Talks New WWE Sets And Presentation For Live Shows – WWE Chief Brand Officer Stephanie McMahon recently sat down for an interview with Variety to discuss how much the the company is looking forward to returning to the road.
McMahon noted that it isn’t just the wrestlers who are excited to get back in front of fans. She went on to say that even though the WWE adapted to the pandemic, it just isn’t the same without the WWE Universe.
“I think I can speak for everybody that touches the WWE Universe — whether it is our fans, our Superstars, our employees, or our partners — we absolutely cannot wait to get back together and come back home where we belong,” said McMahon. “And even though we never went off the air and we continue to produce our content, even though we brought in nearly a million virtual fans over this time period through the ThunderDome with over 70 plus live shows, there’s still just such a huge component missing without fans physically in attendance.”
Despite the pandemic taking away an important aspect from the product, the need to adapt did help spark innovation within the company. McMahon spoke about how the WWE production team worked on adding new technology in order to improve the overall product. She then noted that those improvements will have a notable impact on the live event experience.
“In the ThunderDome, we were able to experiment with different types of technology,” McMahon said. “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. So from a production and storytelling standpoint, it will look and feel different.”
Those improvements will also apply to the sets, as McMahon revealed that WWE shows will feature new arena setups and set designs. She also noted that there will be an increased use of augmented reality and animated graphics through the shows.
“We’re going to have a new set design, a new presentation of our talents, different locations, and arena setups,” revealed McMahon. “We’re going to be utilizing augmented reality in a way that we never have 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.”
As noted, Stephanie McMahon is set to meet with tv network in regards to pitched ideas to boost ratings after RAW ratings dropped to an all-time record low.