I even made it on TV at the part where he runs to the interview and high-fives the crowd! Anyway so here’s how it went.
So I have a widget on my Mac that is a web clipping of his reservation page. I normally use a weather widget to check the weather, but it also allows me to see if any Colbert Report tickets have come up free. Well they had. I checked it last Saturday, and lo and behold, there were three tickets for Monday. So I took them.
Showed up to the theater around 4:15 and got in line. Luckily the ticket-holders line was covered by an awning so when it started raining we didn’t get wet. Waited there until about 5:30 at which point they let us into some sort of holding area. We waited there until about 7:00 at which point they let us in the studio. Really neat to see the inside of it with your real eyes. I even saw the microwave that he stole from O’Reilly.
So then some warm-up comedian comes in. He was okay, just sort of made fun of the audience members really. Not my kind of humor. So after that Colbert came in and ran around for a while and soaked up the cheers.
Then we got to ask him a few questions. He was out of character at this point, but then he ran over to the desk and after a few minutes did the cold opening.
All in all it was a pretty cool experience. I really enjoyed it, but it’s not something I could see myself doing very often. The wait really sucked so I doubt I’d go back. Plus what also kind of sucked was that last night he aired an extra segment from when REM was on the show earlier this summer. I don’t particularly like or dislike REM but it kind of sucked to be robbed of a live segment. But hey, it was a free show.
Also, in case you were wondering, according to the people in the waiting room. Stephen doesn’t read any of the books of his guests. He said that he tried the first night and gave up. Apparently Jon Stewart does though.
Well it is a funny situation actually. Apparently they overbook their shows. So if even if you have a ticket, you can be denied entrance if too many ticket holders show up. They first empty the ticket-holder’s line. If there are still seats, then they go to the standby line.
But I guess they still limit the number to some degree. Really we were supposed to get there at 5, but I read that it’s better to get there at 4 PM. The show only lasts as long as it does on TV. The commercial breaks are probably even shorter, really. He only messed up once, so he had to reshoot that part. It doesn’t happen very often, apparently.
I feel like we got out around 8 PM. That’s kind of crazy when you think about it. They edit the show and everything before 11:30.