Walking with Dinosaurs Arena Show Review

It's a dinosaur puppet show times 200 million---the number of years the dinosaurs dominated the Earth! Walking With Dinosaurs, the BBC TV series turned theatrical event, may be coming to an arena near you. But should you shell out the money to go?

With a 4-year-old old who has flipped his lid over dinosaurs, the answer for us was a definite yes. We attended Walking With Dinosaurs in Cedar Park, Texas, November 21, 2009, well into the show's U.S. tour, which began in July 2007.

Tickets
Ticket prices for Walking With Dinosaurs vary by location and venue. We paid a total of $150 for four tickets via Ticketmaster, and this included all necessary taxes and fees. Parking was an extra $10. No discounted ticket rates were offered for children at the Cedar Park venue.

We chose the less expensive seats, but the Cedar Park Center is not all that large, so our seats weren't that high or far from the action. They gave us a good panoramic view of the whole set. However, if we were to do it again, I might splurge on some seats closer to the arena level to better experience the size and magnitude of the dinosaurs. From our seats, we looked down on even the tallest ones. More on the dinosaurs later.

Overview
Walking With Dinosaurs consists of a narrator, Huxley, a paleontologist played by an actor, who takes the audience on an enthusiastic journey through time to see for themselves the dinosaurs who lived in several different periods. The show is educational as well as entertaining, as the narrator describes the dinosaurs, their eating habits, reasons behind their physical characteristics, and even a bit about their social order.

Walking With Dinosaurs has taken steps to ensure it gives the audience the facts. According to dinosaurlive.com, the show's Web site: "His [Huxley's] script has been verified by real paleontologists and approved by the BBC who produced the award-winning TV series 'Walking With Dinosaurs' on which our show is based. One of their most important hallmarks for the series is that it be as accurate as current science allows---and we have followed in their footsteps, with their guidance."

The Set
As the time period flashes forward millions of years to each new period, the set changes. Trees, plants and colorful flowers, which are essentially large wind socks, sprout from the sides of the arena and then wilt when Huxley describes their destruction by fire and other climatic changes.

A rock-like structure representing the first continent, Pangaea, begins in the center of the arena, then splits apart as the story takes the audience from the Triassic (230 million years ago) to the Jurassic (208 to 144 million years ago) to the Cretaceous (144 to 65 million years ago) period. At one point it serves as a safe haven for Huxley, when a particularly nasty dinosaur makes a run at him.

A huge movie screen serves as the curtain through which each of the 10 dinosaurs enter and exit. In between, it helps set the scene, whether it be a starry night with a huge moon, desert landscape, or aerial view that moves behind a Pterodactyl suspended from wires to make it seem as if it's flying.

The Dinosaurs
Of course, the best part of Walking With Dinosaurs is the dinosaurs themselves. The smaller ones are brought to life by puppeteers who wear dinosaur costumes, their legs visible but camouflaged by the larger legs of the dinosaur. The word costume doesn't quite do these creations justice, but perhaps that's because the puppeteers do such a great job of moving these massive suits in a lifelike way.

The larger dinosaurs---the largest of which is 36 feet tall and 56 feet from nose to tail, according to the Walking With Dinosaurs Web site---run on structures that glide along on rollerblade wheels. Dinosaurlive.com says to operate just one of these dinosaurs it takes a team of three people: one driver, one puppeteer who operates the gross motion of the head and tail, and another who makes the minor movements in the mouth, blinks the eyes and roars.

The most impressive dinosaur, besides the T-Rex of course, was the Brachiosaurus. This "long neck's" long neck was something to behold. I left wondering how this gigantic dinosaur could possibly have slept with that massive, snake-like neck to contend with.

On the other hand, the least impressive dinosaur was the Pterodactyl, which was suspended by wires. Other than flapping it's wings, it stayed in one position, relying on the image on the movie screen behind it to make it appear it was flying. Snooze.

Who should go?
Walking With Dinosaurs advertises that it is appropriate for ages 3 to 93, and I would agree with that. Our party included a 4-year-old, a 16-year-old and 30- and 50-something-year-olds, and we all enjoyed the show. The 96-minute show (includes a 20-minute intermission) held the interest of the 4-year-old. (Cotton candy at the cost of $5 was required during intermission.) And the teenager didn't roll his eyes when he said he enjoyed it. The audience consisted of mainly families with small children, but there were couples without children in attendance and at least one group of teenaged boys.

Scary Factor
Some of the dinosaurs, particularly the mother T-Rex, could be frightening to some small children, so be aware that there is plenty of extremely loud roaring, teeth gnashing and even realistic dining on baby dinosaurs straight from their eggs. At one point, a couple of raptors chew on a "carcass" in the middle of the arena. This show is all about realism, but there is no real violence.

Merchandise
Just like any other arena event, Walking With Dinosaurs souvenirs are readily available during the event and range from posters to T-shirts to bags. They start at $5 for a T-Rex or raptor pennant. Whether you see the show or not, you can purchase these online at dinosaurlive.com.

Cameras
Still photography is permitted, but the audience is asked to turn off their flashes "to avoid upsetting the dinosaurs." The lighting for the show is such that you can still take pretty good photos without a flash. The photos I've included with this review were taken with my cell phone (I forgot my real camera at home), but with a quality camera, you will be able to capture some striking photographs. Videotaping the show is not permitted.

Conclusion
Although I felt the show was a bit slow at times as the dinosaurs simply moved around the arena, I understand why the Walking With Dinosaurs creators allowed plenty of time for the audience to see them. These massive and realistic puppets are the stars of the show, and simply seeing them move about as if they were living and breathing in front of you is amazing---definitely worth the price of admission.