Hallmark has become known for its TV rom-coms, especially in the latter part of the year when its Christmas slate hits the Hallmark movie schedule. In order to get those holiday offerings ready to go in time, though, all of those yuletide greetings tend to be filmed during the calendar’s warmer months. If Kansas City Chiefs fans weren’t privy to that secret of filming a Hallmark Christmas movie before, they sure are now, after about a thousand of them donned their winter clothes to appear in the upcoming movie Holiday Touchdown: A Chiefs Love Story. So how did the crew keep the fans safe?
The Kansas City Chiefs announced in June that they were partnering with Hallmark for a football-centric rom-com, and with everyone from Hallmark hunk Tyler Hynes and Chiefs coach Andy Reid being involved, it’s not surprising that fans wanted in on the action. On July 15, about 1,000 members of Chiefs Kingdom reportedly descended on Arrowhead Stadium in their winter attire, and while that might seem like cause for concern in the summer heat, Hallmark’s executive vice president of programming Lisa Hamilton Daly said they were ready for it. She told the Kansas City Star:
I was so worried that we would lose people yesterday and our team was so prepared. We had ice packs. We had umbrellas. We had air conditioners. We had fans. We hustled people in because they had to be there wrapped up in sweaters pretending they were cold. It was a lot of acting to do that.
Wow, huge props to the Hallmark crew for having a plan in place to keep everyone safe, and to the fans as well, for putting on what I can’t imagine was an easy performance. Kansas City weather reports say the heat hit triple digits on July 15, and Lisa Hamilton Daly said the cast and crew went through 2,000 bottles of water.
Fans were given ice packs, she said, which they wrapped in the scarves around their necks and put inside their jackets. It will take some Christmas movie magic — aka editing — to hide the fact that the fans were actually sweating in their Chiefs gear while pretending to shiver in Kansas City’s frosty temperatures.
The network may have been dealing with about a thousand more people on Holiday Touchdown: A Chiefs Love Story than they’re used to, but having to keep cast members cool while filming is nothing new. Hallmark alum Paul Greene recalled recently how “sweltering” it was when they filmed The Christmas Wishing Tree, and Candace Cameron Bure once showed what it looked like to shoot her scenes in a sweater during a heatwave.
I’m just glad all of those Chiefs fans were able to stay safe to have a memorable — and hopefully enjoyable — experience. We don’t yet know when Holiday Touchdown: A Chiefs Love Story will hit Hallmark, but its Countdown to Christmas fare typically runs from October to December. In the meantime, if you need to start getting in the holiday spirit, you can check out some of the best Christmas movies of all time.
