We’re now a little over a month away from the historic UFC: White House event (aka ‘Freedom Fights 250’) on June 14th and Dana White has now dialled in on some more details.
First up it seems that the UFC brass now have an exact number for the seating at the make-shift arena on the grounds of the White House, as well as who will be attending.
“So there’s going to be 4,300 people there, I just literally went over it right now,” White said on FOX News. “4,300 people and most of them will be military.”
More specifically it seems that there will be over 4,000 military in attendance, with the remaining seats going to President Trump and members of his administration along with other VIP’s.
Beyond that White confirmed there will be 85,000 free tickets up for grabs to watch the event play out live on giant screens at a nearby park.
“Across the street is the Ellipse and for those who don’t know, the Ellipse is a massive park,” White said. “You’ll be able to see the fight from the Ellipse, but we have screens, we’ve got stages, we have music, we have activations over there.
“If you are a fan of the UFC, and especially if you have never been to Washington, D.C., we’re going to give away about 85,000 tickets and there’s a process you have to register for tickets and they’re free,” White stated. “But you should come to Washington, D.C., that week, the week of the fight. We’re going to be doing all kinds of things in D.C. for fans and it’s really a cool city for probably most people have never been and if you’re a UFC fan this is absolutely, positively the time to come to D.C.”
White also revealed that they are now utilizing the most advanced weather predicting technology available to try to prepare for a worst-case scenario situation where they may have to shift the exact timing of the event.
“I hate outdoors [events],” White admitted. “Outdoors is just way too unpredictable and we’ve gone over this. If it rains, we’re going. If it snows, we’re going. The only that will stop us is lightning, but we’re working with the military. So the military knows the weather 10 days out and they’ll notify us every two hours 10 days out. Seven days out, they’ll notify us every hour. Also, there’s another company that does it for concerts and things like that, they’re very good, too.
“The only thing that kills us is lightning. So we could move the event two hours earlier, two hours after. These are all things that we’ll be playing with the week of the event on top of all the other things that we’ll have going on, which we never had to deal with. The only time I’d ever agreed to do an outdoor event was in Abu Dhabi, which, I could be the weatherman in Abu Dhabi, and I would be right every time.”
Watch the full interview below, where you can also see new renderings of what both the White House and Ellipse Park set-ups will look like.
