Who are those other people on Jeopardy?

Cafe Society
1

On occasion during the break preceding Final Jeopardy there is a shot of the set with the contestants behind their podiums, and there are usually some other people in front of the podiums as well. They could be helping contestants with wagers, touching up their make-up or wiping the sweat off their brows. Who are they and what are they really doing?

2

Could be giving them a drink of water and maybe a small snack.

3

They are mostly the contestant coordinators, who come out during each break (not just before Final Jeopardy), to give encouragement, occasionally offer advice like “Speak up a bit” or “You seem to be ringing in too early, try not to anticipate too much,” or other things like that. They are unfailingly upbeat and positive, no matter how far behind you are!

Make up people do come out sometimes to touch you up, if you are sweating a lot :grinning:, and yes, someone does bring out a bottle of water for each contestant during each break. No snacks, though.

Cite: I was on the show a couple of years ago (June 2018). There are a lot of other Dopers who have been on Jeopardy, but I believe that I’m the most recent.

4

It has been 15 years since my last appearance but, IIRC

  1. Make up artist had to come scurrying out at each break to pat down my bald head.

  2. Contestant coordinator to encourage and check up on us. They helped me clean the make up off my glasses, I think they almost held up taping for me.

  3. Before Final Jeopardy! production assistants checked the electronic writing system; and maybe the sound guy. We were also given pen & paper to calculate our FJ wager. Also if our electronic pen malfunctioned. That was one nightmare I had, being afraid I would miscalculate the wager. I think I kinda freaked out on the easiest wager I had to make.

  4. The Stage Manager usually wanders around checking things out.

5

I was on almost 25 years ago, and I don’t remember getting paper for the FJ wager - but I’m real good at doing math in my head. I did get water. And before FJ we were told what the beginning of the question would be (like “who is”) and got to write it, so that we could concentrate on the answer and not mess up the first part.