Our first stop using our Atlanta CitiPASS was the CNN Studio Tour. CNN’s world headquarters are in Atlanta and the studio tour gives a behind the scenes look at the news network. I wasn’t sure how much this would interest the boys – they have little exposure to news shows – but I thought it would be interesting for them to see a TV studio.
You don’t need to buy a ticket if you are using the CitiPASS book, but you do have to wait on the line to turn in your CitiPASS ticket and get an assigned tour time. Tours run every 20 minutes between 9am and 5pm. The next tour that had available slots started in about 25 minutes so we wandered around the CNN Center and the gift shop. The boys’ interest level definitely shot up when they spotted the giant We Bare Bears statue outside the Cartoon Network section of the store. News is not super interesting to 9 and 11 year olds but cartoons definitely are!
About 5-10 minutes before our tour time, we entered the line that queued behind the escalator. Shortly after that they started checking tickets and leading people through the security screening (similar to an airport). Then it was on to the thrill of riding the world’s longest freestanding escalator to the top of the globe. The escalator is 196 feet long and 8 stories high. (The CNN Center main floor is open to the public but you can only ride the elevator if you are part of the tour.)
Fun fact – this building originally housed an indoor amusement park called “The World of Sid and Marty Krofft”. A ride up the escalator in those days would take you to a human pinball machine.
Once inside the globe, we were lead to a small theater which was running multiple CNN broadcasts from around the world. They showed different views that the producers would see during a live broadcast and gave you a little glimpse into the behind-the-scenes directing of the broadcast. Then there was a short film on the history of CNN. The Cable News Network was launched in 1980 as the first 24 hour news network.
After the film, we moved into a sample studio where the tour guide demonstrated how a teleprompter and green screen worked. The boys thought it was cool to see how the weather reports work – the guide was standing in front of the green screen in real life but on the television he was standing in front of a weather map. And they thought it was even cooler when he called up a volunteer and made her disappear behind a green screen blanket, something straight out of Harry Potter with his invisibility cloak.
From this point on we were walking through actual CNN offices and studios and were no longer allowed to take pictures. We were there on a Sunday so the offices were not quite as abuzz with activity as they would be during the week and there were no shows being filmed in the studios. Still, it was neat to see the offices – the huge open work space with tons of screens and monitors everywhere was very different from the quiet cubicle world of my own office. And even an empty studio was cool for the kids to see, particularly how there were dozens of cameras all focusing on the anchor’s desk to film them from all different angles. All in all, I think they enjoyed the tour and learned a good bit about how live television works.
There was one more short film at the end of the tour and then we exited (through the gift shop of course). We stayed and ate lunch in the food court, which was just long enough to let the rain pass, and then we headed out to our next adventure. We did get a picture in front of the CNN sign on the way out, which we hadn’t done on the way in because it was pouring rain.
