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Fired ‘DWTS’ insider exposes backstage secrets about exhausting schedules and rushed planning

Powell claims that DWTS dancers were never the issue—calling them “mind-blowingly fast”—but says production delays and poor planning doomed the tour.

'Dancing with the Stars' season 34 is set to premiere in late 2025, with Robert Irwin, son of the late conservationist Steve Irwin, confirmed as the first celebrity contestant. Needless to say, the show has an interesting concept of pairing a dancer with a non-dancer. However, fans might come to wonder how the dancers and non-dancers prepare for their grand performance. In light of this, a crew member by the name of Adam Powell has come forward to spill some secrets on what goes on behind the curtains.

According to the U.S. Sun, Powell was abruptly fired from the show after "working 100-hour weeks" and participating in six previous DWTS tours. In a Reddit thread, Powell revealed how this came to be. He wrote, "Last January I was dismissed from the tour because I told the producers the show wasn’t ready in time for opening night." Rehearsals for season 33, which was set to premiere in September 2024, began all the way back in December 2023. By January, everyone was in Virginia to begin technical rehearsals, the ex-crew member told the publication. At that time, Powell allegedly worked as the tour's music director and sound engineer.

Powell states the DWTS Live 2024 tour was "thrown together too quickly," with the dancers not getting enough time to prepare for the performance. The sound engineer then went off to reveal more details in the Reddit post as he wrote, "SO WE’RE ALL CLEAR: the performers were never the problem. The pros typically learn a new tour number in about an hour if it’s a duet and 3 to 6 hours if it’s a group piece. They’re so fast and so focused, it blows the mind. Last year the show wasn’t ready because it wasn’t actually written until after rehearsals started, and it was still being revised up until a few days after it was on the road."

"It doesn’t matter how fast the dancers work. They learn a bunch of new stuff one day, and it goes in the show that same night — and then they come back the next day, and it’s already out of the show, and they have to learn something else," Powell said on Reddit. The sound engineer then went on to say the reason for these changes could be owing to the change in target audience. The U.S. Sun reported, "Three years ago, most of the people who came to our shows were 50 and above."

"All the dances for the show, except for ones that they pull straight from [the DWTS show], are actually choreographed in rehearsals in that two-week period," the ex-staffer told the publication. He further stated that his termination was due to complaints from singers who reported issues with the audio levels, claiming they couldn't hear some songs or that certain tracks were too loud.