March 28, 2007

The Price is Right

i flew to LA on sunday morning and met my friend sarah. we stayed at the farmer's daughter hotel http://www.farmersdaughterhotel.com/hotels/index.htm across the street from CBS studios. sarah ordered tickets for us in advance online, but ordering tickets does not mean anything. it's kind of a joke, actually. i mean, they won't let you in if you don' t have them, but if you do have them it doesn't mean anything. sarah made us hot pink shirts that said "the bob barker farewell tour" on the front with his picture, and on the back there was a list of the games. it was cute.

anyway, one of sarah's co-workers said we should be in line by 3am or we probably wouldn't get in. we were going to sleep from about 5pm to 2:30am, and then we were going to get up and get in line. then when we were talking to the woman at the front desk of our hotel, she told us that we should probably be in line by midnight, and that the hotel gave a free seminar about the price is right at 10pm that we should go to. so then we decided to sleep from 5pm to 9:45pm. well, we got up at 9:45pm and got ready to go, and then we walked outside and looked across the street and there was a HUGE line of people waiting on the sidewalk, many of them had tents! we freaked out and decided to skip the seminar and just get in line.

so we got in line. i brought my homework with because i like to use my time efficiently. we were behind a group of 40-somethings from wisconsin. they were smoking the whole time which was annoying, but they were nice and they bought us hot chocolate. behind us were two sisters from maine who were about our age. anyway, we didn't have tents, or even chairs, so we were sitting on the ground. and it was really cold for LA. 50 degrees and windy. i decided to walk down to the 24-hour cvs to see if i could buy some cheap chairs there, but the woman at the store said that a place across the street from the line rented chairs and that would be a better deal. so i walked back to the line and then across the street. the shop was closed but there was a sign that said "ring bell for chairs" so i rang the bell and some poor man who probably had been sleeping on a cot in the back room came out and rented me two chairs for $5 each. so then we had chairs.

we were really lucky that our hotel was right across the street from the line because there was pretty much nowhere within 10 blocks that was open where you could use the bathroom. also, i ended up going back to our hotel a few times for some power naps and to put on more layers of clothes. i hadn't brought a jacket b/c we were going to freakin LA, and i didn't think i'd need one... i was wrong! anyway, at 5:45am everyone in line stood up, and then at 6am the line started to move! i had never been so happy in my life. we slowly moved up to the gate and we were handed our order of arrival passes. sarah and i were numbers 244 and 245. and we got there at 10pm! haha. anyway, we got to go back to our hotel until 7:45am when we had to be back to the studio.

we took a little nap and then went back to the studio. this time we had to line up on benches according to our order of arrival numbers. this took FOREVER, about an hour, because people do not know how to count apparently. anyway, then we finally stood up and moved in our line until we got to the cbs employees, who checked that we had tickets and we got a new number that was written on our tickets (some people had tickets for the 4:30 taping so our numbers changed). they had about 800 people to get through so it took a really long time. lots of people at the end of the line were turned away, and some were given standby numbers. (the studio only seats about 325 people). when they had finally given everyone new numbers then we had to get in line on the benches again according to our numbers. the employees then came around again and gave us number cards. then they came around another time and wrote out our names on the sticky price tags that we attached to our shirts. that's when i started to get excited, haha!

after they got through everyone's names, they brought people over for the "interview". we went over in groups of 10 or so, and there was a man who asked us where we were from and what our job was. i guess that was the time we were supposed to interrupt him and say some interesting things about why we should be on the show... but no one in our group did that. anyway, after the 1 minute interview we had to sit and wait again. around 1pm we finally got up and were led into the studio! we got REALLY excited then. it was really cool, except we couldn't believe how small the audience was! on the tv they must do some camera tricks b/c the audience section is serously like 3 sets of 10 rows with 10 seats. it's unbelievably small.
the announcer man rich told us what to expect with the show, and he told us that we have to yell a lot and act really excited (most people were doing that anyway). and then bob came out. it was pretty exciting. during the commercial breaks people got to ask him questions and he was pretty cool. my favorite thing that he said was when someone asked him what he planned to do when he retired, he said "put a rocking chair in front of the tv, then i'll pet my dog with my right hand and in my left hand i'll have a jug of tequila". lol.

the show went really quick. 4 out of the 6 contestants that got on stage won. one woman that we met in the bathroom before the show won $10,000 so that was really exciting. one guy won a car. at first i thought it would be really scary to be a contenstant, but actually the studio is so small, and bob and the people working there tell you what to do, so it really wouldn't have been too nerve-racking. lots of people brought presents for bob. shirts, awards, yo-yos... i bet he throws it all in the trash right after the show. i mean really, how can you keep 35 years of crap that people have brought for you?

anyway, it was a pretty cool experience. i'm glad that i went and got to see bob barker before he retires this summer. if i ever went again, i would go with a big group of people- for two reasons: 1- you can take turns waiting outside in the line and sleeping in your hotel room. 2- they seem to pick people to be on the show who are part of a big group. also, when you "interview" i think you really need to be interesting and quirky in order to get picked for contestants' row. i think i would like to go again if we could get a big group of people, especially if mario lopez ends up replacing bob barker!

"CBS and RTL are in the process of auditioning for a new host. On December 8, 2006, CBS began official host auditions, as CBS weatherman Dave Price from The Early Show became the first candidate auditioned. Two additional sessions were held in January 2007, with one hosted alternately by Todd Newton and John O'Hurley and the other emceed by Doug Davidson (who hosted the 1994 version of the show). Former Beauty and the Geek host Mike Richards, George Hamilton, and Mario Lopez are scheduled to audition in mid-March."

Posted by JenMagenta at March 28, 2007 12:24 PM
Comments

I must say i'm envious. I want a cool experience too, but i ain't getting nothing.

Posted by: Drug Addiction at May 30, 2007 9:12 AM

Didn't you feel like you, somehow, won the 10,000$ prize? I had this feeling when a guy I've met in the restaurant won 50K in Vegas. It felt like I was winning.

Posted by: donate car at June 18, 2007 1:39 PM
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