Events 

Jurassic World: The Live Tour 🦖 

Jurassic World: The Live Tour will be making its much anticipated Canadian Premiere in Vancouver this weekend, at the PNE Coliseum. I had the luxury of getting a behind the scenes look at what goes in to making a show of this scale, meeting some of the performers, and my favourite part - watching dinosaurs come to life.

First I spoke with Luke Littlefield and Steven Weimer, who perform the motorbike stunt scenes. 

It was a blast talking to these two, as they were clearly amped up about the show but just as passionate about where their careers had taken them. Luke initially rode and competed in Moto Trials, and Steven did the same with Motorcycles - which led them both to this opportunity.

They have a lot of risk involved in their scenes, so I was curious how they managed navigating around the many moving pieces around them, because to me even with preparation there would be concern having to navigate the landscape at the speed that they do.
What they essentially said was that in every scene their is one focal point that every other aspect has to orbit around, so to the untrained eye it may seem chaotic but there’s actually a method to their madness. 

I was then able to chat it up with Oscar (played by Antonio Valles) who provided some great insight into the show, and allowed your guy to live out a dream by getting to ride along in the iconic Jurassic World jeep. He explained that though the show may be self contained in presentation, it actually fits in canonically to the Jurassic movie franchise timeline, while also tying in the Netflix animated series Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous. 

Last but not least I spoke with Carlos Caraballo, who is one of the puppeteers that brings the dinosaurs to life. He was able to breakdown the technical aspect of being a puppeteer and how much of a physical undertaking it actually is. 

When you’re caught up in the show you can’t really grasp the amount of work that goes into BEING the dinosaur. It’s a kudos to the performers that we as the audience become so lost in the story of it all, but the combination of carrying the weight of the shell, the hand eye coordination, and having to function in a really tight space is an undertaking that takes countless hours of preparation to perfect. 

Getting the chance to see some of the performance, and the amount of emotion they can convey with the flick of a switch gave me a new found respect for these puppeteers - who in my opinion are the unsung heroes of the show.

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There were two sides to my time at this early access, sneak peek. 

One was enjoying getting to learn about the behind the scenes prep, the intricate details that make up the show, and the motivation for the cast & crew. Then theres the obvious part of this all where it doesn’t matter how old you get, life sized Dinosaurs on the big screen, or in person - will always be magical. 

Children are going to love it, and adults are not going to be able to help but get swept away in the childlike wonder dinosaurs bring.

Enjoy!

Jurassic World: The Live Tour Vancouver (2023) The Richmond Reviewer. #JurassicWorldLive

Where: Pacific Coliseum (Vancouver) 🏟 

When: May 19–21 & May 26–28, 2023 📆
Tickets: www.jurassicworldlivetour.com