WWE Talks to WrestleMania Set Designer Jason Robinson

One of the key elements that makes WrestleMania the spectacle it has become is the set design. While displays like at MetLife Stadium for WrestleMania 29 featured homages to the locals, others have been more low-key and pure.

WWE sat down with the man behind the sets, Jason Robinson. Highlights from the interview can be found below.

Robinson spoke on how he conceptualizes the set:

“It’s sort of a two-part scenario. I go early on and sit in the stadium to just see how that vibe is and see what we can do from a logistics point of view, to see what my canvas is … how big a canvas I can have, or what limitations I have. [Then] I go back and look at the WrestleMania logo that’s been decided by that point and see if there’s some cool elements involved in that. New York was WrestleMania 29, WrestleMania 30 was about our logo and about our 30th anniversary. I kind of get that feeling. And then I’m telling you, you just pick up a pen, scratch that piece of paper and really dive in until you have that ‘A-ha!’ moment. I’ll pitch two or three of those to [WWE Executive Vice President, Television Production] Kevin Dunn, and then we’ll discuss it. It’s really an organic process of sitting in the stadium, going back and drawing, throwing that all away, picking up the next one, and throwing that all away.”

He discussed his favorite set, which was in Florida:

“For a lot of people that I know — and for me — it’s WrestleMania XXIV in Orlando, Fla. That was our first time packing a stadium after taking our hiatus to do 20, 21 and 22, which were in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. We got back to the stadium for 24 and Kevin [Dunn] and I sat down and went, ‘What are we going to do?’ It’s Florida, we’ve got to have palm trees and we’ve got to have this art deco hotel. We gotta have this; we gotta have that. That was the most fun design point — from having the constraints of an arena to going back to a stadium and saying, “This is awesome. We’ve got to do this.” We had the open endzone [so] I didn’t have to block any seats. We had the fireworks, and the lake behind it. I still remember everything about it.”

Robinson also gave hints towards this year’s set:

“Expect something different from us. The atmosphere being West Coast and daylight presented some very unique challenges for us to overcome. The structure itself isn’t really tied to a particular thing like the city or arena, but we have this really unique thing where we can’t hide anything. We have to be open, [because] everybody’s going to see everything. I can’t do the theater magic and hide the bad parts. So we’ve had to work really hard. Everything had to tie in and feel like it was part of the image and the structure. It’s a unique set, a unique way of lighting the ring because of the sun. You’ll see some different search lights around there, and from a lighting point of view and the set, we’ve had to deal with having full sun on the set because you can’t hide anything. You’ll see it’s a different set from us this year.”

The whole piece can be found here.

Editor’s Note

Really cool, unique idea for a piece. The sets are mammoths. 

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