Real Reason AEW Refusing To Run Smaller Buildings

AEW’s in-ring product might be on fire but the company continues to struggle with attendance but it seems there’s a reason Tony Khan has avoided smaller venues.

AEW might claim the record for the highest ticket-selling wrestling show of all time with All In 2023 but in recent months, Tony Khan’s promotion has struggled to fill the bigger buildings that it holds Dynamite and Collision in every week.

Many fans have called for AEW to run smaller venues to pack them out and theoretically improve the atmospheres at the shows. But it seems there’s a logistical reason as to why that hasn’t happened so far.

AEW Looking To Run Smaller Buildings

Speaking on Wrestling Observer Live, Bryan Alvarez revealed that issues with AEW’s set have stopped them from running smaller venues so far but that is likely to change in 2025:

I have been told that there is headway being made in running smaller buildings. Now you hear that and think, ‘Why does headway need to be made? Just book smaller buildings.’ Well apparently, there actually was – I can’t give you all the details, I don’t know all the details – a logistical reason why they were running a lot of larger buildings and it had to do with the set, and in particular, the lighting rig.

There was something that they had in their set that was basically too large and heavy to get into smaller buildings and so they have been working on retooling it so they can actually get their set into smaller buildings.

So I think as 2025 kind of starts coming in, they’ve been talking about different ideas for production and everything like that. I think we’re going to finally get the move. There are gonna be smaller buildings. They’re gonna work on some production and hopefully, that will be a positive in terms of how the show looks, sounds, etc. on television. And they’ll save a lot of money.

Ticket sales for AEW Full Gear seem to be healthy enough with WrestleTix reporting on November 17th that less than 1,000 tickets remain available for the show in Newark, New Jersey with almost seven and a half thousand tickets distributed for the event that will see Orange Cassidy challenge Jon Moxley for the AEW World Championship.

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