METALLICA's December 2 concert at the at the Spokane Arena in Spokane, Washington shattered the venue's nearly 20-year attendance record with a crowd of 13,184 fans on hand. The show broke a record that had been in place since August 17, 1999, when 12,526 people turned up at a Neil Diamond gig. "To break an almost 20-year attendance record was amazing," said Matt Gibson, general manager of the Spokane Arena. "But doing it with a crowd of all ages coming to see a band like METALLICA makes it all that more special." According to Gibson, room for the additional 658 people was found on the venue's floor. "We had seats in place for Neil Diamond, and we did not have seats in place for METALLICA," he told Spokesman.com. "It was a GA (general admission) show, so we had more capacity on the floor. And anytime we have a stage in the round, we always have more room because of infrastructure that we don’t need when we have an end-stage show." The METALLICA production featured 52 video cubes that moved up and down above the stage, setting another Arena record: for most weight hung from the venue's rigging grid: 230,000 static pounds and 320,000 dynamic pounds distributed along the steel beams of the venue. "I'm still wondering how we got through it," Gibson said. "It was a huge, huge show. We had never hung that kind of weight on the grid before, and it was the first time in almost 20 years of doing that that my folks came back and said, 'Yeah, sorry, we can't do this.' … This was the first time we had to stop and take a step back and figure out how we were going to do it." The second North American leg of METALLICA's "WorldWired" features in-the-round production and a few firsts, including a "Light It Up" pre-show party hosted by the band's friend, comedian Jim Breuer; and a "Wherever I May Roam Black Ticket" that gives a limited number of fans floor access to any show on the tour. The "WorldWired" set and stage design, designed by the show's director, Dan Braun, features an immersive concert experience with a 44' x 44' square main-stage equipped with several prop lifts located in the center of the arena. The "WorldWired" show features the touring industry's first autonomous indoor drone swarm, with 99 micro drones dancing like fireflies for the song "Moth Into Flame". METALLICA kicked off the 2018/2019 U.S. leg of the "WorldWired" arena tour on September 2 at the Kohl Center in Madison, Wisconsin.
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