Animation meets live action with Dreamworks How To Train Your Dragon LIVE show

Last night we had an amazing opportunity to attend Dreamworks How To Train Your Dragon Live Spectacular at the United Center in Chicago.

My kids and I (pictured below) attended with a friend of mine.

We actually had VIP tickets for the show, which means we got to experience the show with a bit of extras.

We entered through the VIP entrance to begin our ‘A Hero’s Welcome‘ VIP experience before the show.

We received a laminate VIP pass, a bag with some How To Train Your Dragon Goodies (a hand puppet, a fiber optic light wand and a poster that was rather cumbersome to carry around the whole evening) and we were ushered off to a professional photo shoot where we got to dress in viking costumes. We did not receive a program, though, which I thought should have come with the VIP ticket.

The next activity was a meet and greet with Hiccup and Astrid, the stars of the show.  I thought it was great to see them up close but my kids really didn’t understand who they were BEFORE the show so I don’t think they took as much away from it as they would have if it had been AFTER the show.  The United Center also didn’t really set it up in a large enough space.  It was cramped, crowded and unorganized.  My kids did get honorary dragon trainer certificates which they got a kick out of.

Then the show started.

VIP did afford us amazing seats.

The show was SPECTACULAR.

My daughter keeps asking if we can go back today.

Dreamworks did a fantastic job with the show.  I had no idea what to expect but they combined animation with live action both on the floor and on the backdrop in a way I have never experienced before.  It was amazing and breathtaking.  Not to mention the dragons themselves.  Incredible!

Dreamworks logo before the start of the show

Animated sequence on floor and wall

Gronckle – he’s a “stinky” dragon

The Gronckle showing us just how stinky he is

The Nadder has a bad temper

The End

After the show we were told to remain in our seats and someone would direct us to the remainder of our VIP experience, “Dragons 101″ which was a post-show tech talk about how the show worked.  We remained in our seats but were never provided with any directions. Finally we noticed a group gathered halfway around the arena so we walked over there. The talk had started by the time we got there.  It was somewhat informative, though short, and the person leading the talk had trouble with his mic so it was hard to hear.

These are some facts we learned about the show:

• There are 20 projectors that display the different “locations” during the show.  Each project costs $100,000 for a total of $2,000,000 in projectors suspended from the ceilings.
• The show moves across the country in 30 semi trucks
• Each dragon carriage that is suspended from the ceiling weighs 7,000 lbs.  They hold the dragons that are suspended for flying.
• Each dragon is controlled by 3 puppeteers.
• Over 350 people were involved in creating the show.

I highly recommend the show for kids of all ages.  We were all captivated and entertained and it was a top-notch performance.  The VIP Experience, I hesitate to fully recommend because frankly I didn’t feel that for $200 a ticket, it provided enough value to warrant the extra expense.  My kids are talking about the show, and when I remind them about the extras from VIP, they just weren’t that excited about that part of it, and I don’t feel it lived up to my expectations either, except maybe for our seats.  The seats were incredible.

For more information about the show you can follow it here:

• On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DreamWorksDragonsLive
• On Twitter: https://twitter.com/DWdragonslive.

For tickets, visit Ticketmaster.com.  You can save 25% on select seats at weekday shows (incl. Fridays) using the promo code: MOM.