In the Audience - Jimmy Kimmel Live

Going to college near Los Angeles is one of the coolest things ever (not gonna lie) because there is SO much to do and see. Just one problem - when does a busy college student like me have time for that?!? There were so many things that I said I would do during freshman year that I never found time for. So, at the beginning of Fall semester, my good friend Yvonne and I made it our mission to go to as many TV show tapings as we could. First stop - Jimmy Kimmel Live.

Jimmy Kimmel Live is a late night show that films in Hollywood just about every weekday, and getting tickets is super simple - and free! The free ticketing service 1iota has become my best friend and is the only way to get tickets to see Jimmy Kimmel Live. I entered the lottery for one of his shows and got Priority tickets (guaranteed admission) . Yvonne and I had so much fun and it went a little something like this (for anyone interested in going to a taping in the future)...

WAITING IN LINE:

We arrived right outside the Jimmy Kimmel Live studio on Hollywood Boulevard around 1:30 PM because check-in began at 2:15 PM. We parked roughly 2 blocks away from the theater, and there are plenty of lotsmwith decent prices surrounding the boulevard. The window for priority ticket check-in is pretty short, usually only half an hour. Therefore, if you have a priority ticket but miss the window for check-in, you will have to wait in line with all the general admission tickets which means that your seat is not gauranteed (boooooo). After the 1iota team scanned our ticket, we went through security where they checked our bags, patted us down, threw out my Goldfish crackers, and made us turn off our cell phones. Then that brought us to....

WAITING IN LINE: THE SEQUEL

More waiting. By the time we got inside the building, it was about 4:00 PM. They herded us ike cattle into this little area where they played clips from past episodes to entertain us. One of the workers escorted us to the bathrooms in groups of 15 or so. We stood here for about half an hour before they took us downstairs to the studio. Once we reached the studio door, there was a man who placed everyone in specific seats in the audience. Yvonne and I were set in the very front row, slightly stage right (probably because of our dashing looks).

IN THE AUDIENCE

Just sitting in the studio with the set and all the lights is a really neat feeling. It is much, much smaller than it appears on television. We waited in our seats until the entire audience was sat, and then the warm up guy came out to entertain us. He cracked jokes and talked to people in the audience about where they were from and why they were visiting. That lasted for what felt like an hour (I didn't wear a watch) before Jimmy came out. After the first segment was filmed, he chatted with the audience a bit, then the taping continued. The guests on our show were Anna Faris, Trevor Noah, and some dog grooming lady. The taping itself took a very short amount of time, about 30 minutes. Even though they were adamant about us turning off our phones, some people were using theirs out in the open and never got in trouble. So I snapped this picture :)

AFTER THE SHOW:

The taping we were at included an Outdoor Mini-Concert with Walk the Moon. The studio audience got escorted outside to this sketchy little backlot behind the studio. There was a booth where you could buy show merchandise, but since we were allowed to use our phones now, I settled for my own selfies. Walk the Moon played about 5 songs, and I danced around a lot. It's a pretty intimiate concert setting, I'd guess around 150 people. We left around 7:00 PM feeling very satisfied with the first show taping of the semester. All in all, the total waiting time was a little too long for how much time we spent in the studio, but I'd do it again in the future :)

Somewhere under a palm tree,

Danielle

#california #tvshow