Vikings plan huge Prince tribute in stadium opener

Published: Sep 15, 2016 at 05:59 AM

The Minnesota Vikings are going all out for the grand opening of U.S. Bank Stadium.

The centerpiece of the night will remain the game, of course, a huge Sunday Night Football matchup against the hated Packers to be played in front of Al, Cris and the world. But the Vikings are giving the expected 66,000-plus fans in attendance more bang for their buck to celebrate the occasion.

According to the Star Tribune, the festivities will include DJ Skee (I'm not familiar with his work), an Icelandic soccer captain, Mountain from *Game of Thrones *(why not?), the Minnesota Orchestra, and an elaborate tribute to Prince.

How big a deal is this to the Vikings? They successfully petitioned the league to get an extra minute added to halftime to facilitate all the moving parts for their show. The Minnesota Orchestra will take the field during the break, a collective of 70 different musicians. A group of 215 volunteers will make sure the field in cleared in time for the scheduled start of the second half.

The Iceland soccer star is Aron Gunnarsson (great name), who we surmise will take part in the new "Vikings Skol Chant", a take-off of the "Vikings War Chant" we saw this summer when the Icelandic soccer team returned home from an inspired run at the Euro Cup. See below:

As for the Prince tribute? True to the subject, it's pretty much a mystery. We do know 15,000 square feet of projection mapping will be laid across the U.S. Bank Stadium turf for the show.

That should be cool. I wish Prince was still around.

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