Tony Khan Explains Bringing Fans Back To AEW Dynamite, Thought Of Doing Drive-In Wrestling

AEW never stopped running its weekly television events during the pandemic and they were the first televised company to bring back fans. 

While WWE has the ThunderDome, and IMPACT, MLW, and ROH run in empty arenas, AEW allows a limited capacity of fans at Daily’s Place. 

Speaking on Rasslin With Brandon Walker, Khan explained his thought process behind bringing back fans. 

“Eventually, as we’ve gone on and learned more, we learned we could do outdoor shows with limited risk of transmission as long as we kept everyone split up. I wanted to bring fans back and allow fans to come to the show in a safe manner. This was inspired by drive-in movies. When I saw drive-in movies were doing it, I was thinking there had to be a way to do it. At first, I thought about doing drive-in wrestling, but it wasn’t viable to get the ring set-up and do it with cars, though I do think people have tried it and it’s a cool idea. For us, doing a live television show, sooner or later you’re going to run into logistical problems with weather and other challenges. Before any sports had done it, we were the first ones to have pod seating and giving them a chance to do socially distance viewings of the show,” he said. 

Khan said they have just over 1,000 fans inside Daily’s Place for events and it’s helped title wins and other moments feel bigger to have a live audience. 

When the pandemic first started, Khan had wrestlers and staff sit around ringside to serve as the crowd for television. He revealed in a previous interview that he took inspiration from “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon” to have staff fill in as fans. You can find his full comments by clicking here. 

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